


Atomic

by erude1, RiverDelta



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Researched History (Mid 20th Century), Amethyst is Literally This Universe's Richard Feynman, Based Loosely off of Romans-Art's AU, Cold War, Espionage, F/F, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Nuclear Weapons, Pearl is Literally This Universe's Robert Oppenheimer, Post-World War II, SIANW - Pearl Totally Isn't Feynman, SIANW - Pearl Totally Isn't Oppenheimer, Screenplay/Script Format, Soviet Spies AU, Updates By Buffer, Written by two people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 45,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9124024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erude1/pseuds/erude1, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverDelta/pseuds/RiverDelta
Summary: The Full Cast (Both Atomic and Strong in a New Way):(A)Peridot Marshall. Scientist rapidly falling into oblivion.(SIANW) Olivia "Peridot" Cardoso. Scientist who might be losing her mind completely.(A) Lapis Lomidze. Soviet spy afraid of being shot by her own country for being a failure.(SIANW) Lapis Lionidze. Soviet spy with a checkered past and just the wrong kind of family.(SIANW) Pearl Nacre. Former nuclear scientist, current ghost. Possibly. If she's real. Might be the embodiment of Peridot's sanity (or the embodiment of her guilt).(SIANW) Fekla Zhasbera (Jasper). Former NKVD Political Officer. Current ghost. Might be the embodiment of Lapis' self-loathing.(SIANW) Amy Baumann. Not that important scientist but, in a sense, an avenging angel sent to fuck this ship right the hell up.Post-War America isn't exactly picket fences and Coca-Cola, and ideals are a weakness. A story of historical gays.Now with scripts from a failed podcast adaptation that changed a ton and elaborated on things in much more depth and with a higher quality of writing!





	1. Chapter 1

**Lapis:**

There were many things she found surprising about her current situation, but the one that came to mind first as she gazed across the plains surrounding Houston was how flat one place could be. She thought fondly of Georgia in contrast, with its rolling hills and craggy mountains. The plane shuddered with turbulence, preparing for landing. She couldn't deny that this brought up memories that she had tried with great effort to repress over time, but now was a time for focusing. Focus, Lapis. You have a job to do, and its success is not negotiable.

Reaching into her suitcase, which lay in the empty seat next to her, she turned over the headshot of the scientist she was to meet, and then marry not long after. One Doctor Olivia Peridot Marshall, apparently. Commonly referred to as Peridot, or Peri in close company. 160 centimeters, one leg, and one hell of a hairstyle. Overall, she found herself hoping that she had been given the wrong file, as she carelessly flicked the photo back into the case. The air around her buzzed with conversation and movement of the plane landing, in contrast to her near silence. The stewardess mentioned something to the passengers along the lines of “Welcome to Houston,” but she was preoccupied with running the file over and back again in her head. She wasn't proud of much, but a good memory was certainly something that could be on that short list.

She flattened out her simple azure dress with one hand as she moved to exit the plane, lifting her luggage with the other. “Have a lovely stay in Texas, ma'am!” called a stewardess. She blinked once, before turning and leaving the plane with not so much as a nod of acknowledgement. She was using this time to get focused, not to make small talk. After renting a fairly cheap Hudson 6, she took one more quick glance at directions and started the car. Hopefully, the drive wouldn't be too long, and this Peridot would be bearable.

Not long after, she pulled up to the apartment complex where she would be staying for the next week or so, before leaving for New Mexico. The plan had been detailed to her in advance, of course, and this looked correct. She parked the car, grabbed her luggage, and made her way to the correct apartment, knocking two times, hesitating, sighing, and then knocking three more times as planned.

**Peridot:**

She’d heard her mother say to her father, when Roosevelt was elected, that no matter who ran things, you had to trust that the President knew what he was doing. She also heard secondhand that J. Pearl Oppenheimer had said “It worked”, as she watched the first atomic bomb detonate.

Both quotes had influenced her in her adult life. The former she’d concluded was crap. America was ripe for a fascist takeover, post-war energy was high, fear of communism pervaded every aspect of American society, and a charismatic strongman couldn’t find a better place to set up shop. Oh, and America was the only nation able to destroy a city with a single bomb.

Sometimes, she wished she declined to work on the Manhattan Project. Yes, that was a thing she did. She’d worked to build that very bomb. Those times, she banished the thoughts. After all, someone else was going to help build it if she didn’t, and they did need to defeat Japan. Even if the second bomb was only used...Damn it. She lay on the bed of the rented apartment, reading Time. The newest issue, September 22nd, had a colored man on it. Huh. Jackie Robinson.

Anyway, as for why she was glad in a perverse way that she participated as a minor accomplice in the murder of one or two hundred thousand oppressed Japanese civilians, it was because, well, of the visitor. Olivia Peridot Marshall wasn’t a commie. Definitely not. She was a proud Texan, and did genuinely believe that America was a good country, with good people.

She just wasn’t an idiot. The American Hitler was coming, sooner or later, and if America was the only nation with atomic weaponry...She’d pondered those consequences at length, and frankly didn’t want to think about it too much. She heard the knocking at the door and stood up, walking on her artificial leg over. She opened the door and looked at the other woman. “Comrade Lazuli?” She joked. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

**Lapis:**

As the door swung open to the apartment, she was able to finally get a look at this scientist in real life. Prospects weren’t much better than the headshot, apparently. As short as expected, hair even wilder than expected, a bit of a slob, and certainly not the best opening line. Still, she was expected to make sure this woman was safe, or die at the hands of her government in less than pretty terms. It didn’t mean she had to be filled with glee about it, though.

“It’s Lapis,” Lapis replied, deadpan, heels clicking as she strode into the apartment past her. “You’re Doctor Marshall, I presume?” She didn’t take the time to face her as she asked the question, looking for a clean spot to set down her bag. she paused, before realizing it would be much harder to fake a marriage if she couldn’t at least get along with her. “Excuse me, I meant capitalist pig Doctor Marshall, my mistake,” She added with a smirk as she leaned against the table not too far into the interior of the apartment.

**Peridot:**

“The mistake’s forgiven. I prefer Peridot, honestly. Never liked Olivia, and Doctor Marshall sounds like the kind of monster who would work on...So I like Peridot.” She laughed a bit in her usual slightly shrill, high-pitched laugh, and went back to the bed. “So, we’re supposed to be married?” She snorted, the small woman relaxing with a smirk on the bed.

“I can’t imagine how that’s going to go. Eh. Whatever. We’ll have to make it work. Not like either of us has much of a choice. Do you want me to get you something from the kitchen?” She shrugged and rolled off of the bed, hitting the floor with a graceless thump. “That seemed like a better idea in my head.” She readjusted her leg and crawled back up using the bed.

**Lapis:**

“Alright, Peridot then.” She could understand the reasoning of not wanting to be associated with the Manhattan Project, horrible as it was, and considering the two of them would be a loving couple to everybody else around them it made more sense to go that way. She let her eyes gaze around the apartment, tapping one foot absentmindedly, and thinking about the whole marriage thing again as Peridot brought it up. “Yep, we have to go get our license tomorrow...dear,” she added the fabricated pet name with a small chuckle.

“Not to be stereotypical, but if you had any vodka, that was one hell of a flight. To be fair, not my worst, but that’s not relevant. Otherwise, water.” She stared at Peridot for a moment as she rolled off the bed. This was a woman who helped designed a bomb that killed hundreds of thousands of people. This was a woman that Lapis had to protect. This was also a woman who just fell off of a bed in the most clumsy way possible… hopefully this wasn’t a precedent. The job was shaping up to be more difficult than expected, but also more interesting, she had to admit.

**Peridot:**

She liked to think that she had an eye for details. Sometimes. Okay, not all the time, but sometimes. Specifically, at this very moment, she noticed that while one could tell exactly who Peridot generally was as a person within the minute or so of her meeting with Lapis, Peridot had no idea who this person was or how she operated. She probably should have expected that of a Russian spy, in retrospect.

Well, in theory, she could be from any of the various SSRs of the Soviet Union, but Peridot reasoned that she was most likely a Russian. She walked over to the kitchenette and drew a bottle of high-quality American vodka from the liquor cabinet, having been left by the apartment’s landlord. She reached into the icebox and began to prepare for Lapis some vodka on the rocks. “If we’re going to get married, we should probably know more about each other than “Socially-maladapted engineer with tantalising nuclear secrets” and “Ice-cold woman of mystery”.”

**Lapis:**

Although a little surprised that America even had vodka anymore, with all of their USSR and communism-induced panic, she reasoned that alcohol was more important than ideals to the average citizen. Taking a seat at the small, round kitchen table, she let one arm rest on the table as she watched Peridot.

She liked to think she had the scientist already figured out, but there was most likely some parts missing in the file and of what she had already seen. People were more complex than that. “Well, Mrs. Socially-maladapted engineer,” she began, “my real history doesn’t apply, so for you, I’m your loving fianceé from Cincinnati which you originally met through friends. Do we need much more than that?” It was clear that she was less than willing to talk about her time before coming to the States.

**Peridot:**

Peridot was the sort of person who needed to sometimes have ‘subtlety’ engraved on a sledgehammer and used to hit her in the face for her to get a clue. Metaphorically speaking. Wait. Was that even a metaphor? She wasn’t quite sure if that made sense. Point was that Peridot often misses social cues. Luckily, this one was obvious enough that she got it. “Right, right. My loving fianceé from Cincinnati.”

“Well, as you know...” She was aware that Lapis did, in fact, most likely know all of this, probably due to some mysterious NKVD file. “I was born Olivia Peridot Marshall, in Austin, Texas, in 1923. My father was an engineer as well, who would later work on various New Deal projects, notably some work with the TVA. In 1942 I joined the Army Corps of Engineers and built bridges on the Western Front. There a shell detonated and I lost this leg. After that, I was moved to New Mexico, where I worked on Trinity under Julia Pearl Oppenheimer, doing nuclear engineering. I was told that we’d win the war. We did, but I quickly realized that if someone didn’t do something, that another war would be coming soon enough. So I swallowed my pride, which leads to you being here. Oh, and my mother passed away to polio in 1946, a year ago, and I’m still sort of coping with that. As with your description of your personal history, this is all true.”

**Lapis:**

Lapis was aware of basically everything that Peridot repeated to her, but she still at least had the politeness to listen to it all over again. After a brief pause, she smirked. “I think you’ll probably be the talker in the relationship, hmm? ...I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” she added.

“How’s that vodka coming along?” she asked, standing up as she used this time to pace around the rather small apartment that they would be sharing. She peeked into the adjacent rooms, bathroom and closets, before returning to the kitchen, in hearing range the entire time. “This is better than I expected, honestly. Much better than prior arrangements. I assume you’re comfortable with sharing a bed?”

**Peridot:**

“Were those prior arrangements in Warsaw Pact countries? I’m sort of given, you know, rumors about Russian apartments.” Dammit, Peridot. Great social skills. “Anyway, here’s the vodka. I hope it’s up to your standards.” She seems mildly annoyed, but it is very, very mild. Peridot puts the glass of ice and vodka on the table in front of Lapis.

“I would get some for me, but I don’t drink, mostly due to the last time I drank being with some detective girlfriend when I was on leave from the Army Corps of Engineers. That didn’t really go well. As you can imagine, I’m just amazing to deal with when drunk. Point is that I don’t drink.”

**Lapis:**

She shrugged, picking up the glass that was set in front of her and taking a drink. Aware that this was also rather stereotypical, she had a pretty high tolerance to alcohol. “More for me, I suppose. I’m sure you’re wonderful when you’re drunk,” she added facetiously, with another sip.

“So, what does an American like yourself do for fun around here? Start a business?” Lapis peered through a half-shuttered window from her seat at the table, out into the sprawling, very flat land around them. The plane-like quality of this part of the US still hadn’t ceased to warrant her attention. “No hiking around these parts, I suppose.”

**Peridot:**

“Well, in America businesses are a thing that either are desperately struggling to make money or constantly exploiting pretty much everyone else. I don’t like communism, personally, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve got no love for American business-” She coughs the word ‘monopoly’ very unsubtly into her sleeve “-either. For fun, I, personally, listen to the radio or read, mostly, but I usually have work to do and I don’t have much free time. I used to talk to colleagues for fun a lot, but the bomb kind of soured that.

“It’s hard to chat with people who enthusiastically decided to drop the second bomb because we had a second bomb. Or, well, who allowed it, I guess. Look, if it seems like I’m focusing a lot on the bombs...You ever have a memory that keeps chasing you, all the time? Something that becomes your shadow? That’s mine.”

**Lapis:**

She nodded along to Peridot’s monologue of sorts, and found herself empathizing pretty heavily with the last part. “I have those memories as well, believe me.” She looked down at her glass, letting the vodka’s surface tilt back in forth as she moved her hand in a subtle pendulum-like motion.

“This is penance, though, for those memories. What we’re doing. We’re both redeeming ourselves, in certain, probably different, ways.” For Peridot, it was personal penance, Lapis presumed, and for herself, it was mandatory. “We both have our bombs.”

**Peridot:**

“Well, I can’t imagine what happened in Cincinnati, then.” She laughed hollowly and shrugged, preparing for herself some tea, hoping to drink in a few minutes that Southern classic, saccharine iced tea.

Honestly, she didn’t know how to respond to that. This was a NKVD spy. Someone who could have done any number of horrible things. Massacres. Betrayals. If this woman felt guilt, that could mean a lot. Peridot froze up for a bit, scared at the possibilities. She’d probably never learn what Lapis’ shadow was, and she probably never would. Something just happened in Cincinnati.

**Lapis:**

She couldn’t help but smirk softly at Peridot’s comment. Not many others would make a joke after that bombshell. Lifting up her glass again, she took a sip, before jolting in realization of something forgotten, eyes widening. “მივხვდი! I mean, fuck!” The word spilled out of her mouth, in Georgian first, something she would have to get better at, as she placed the glass down on the table and rushed to the nearest lamp, turning it off and unscrewing the light bulb quickly.

“I forgot to look for… well, you know,” she spoke a little frantically, flushed as she inspected the lamp and then searching the other common bug hiding places in the apartment. She knew that if she found one, her mission would be over much, much quicker than expected, and her life not long after most likely.

**Peridot:**

Peridot resisted the urge to lecture about it, and she stood there, waiting for her tea, seemingly unconcerned. After all, Lapis was here, in a random apartment outside of Houston, under an assumed name. Peridot wasn’t particularly essential to the Manhattan Project, just someone who had decent enough Army security clearance. Lapis’ mission had only just begun, and therefore, the likelihood that this particular apartment was bugged now was very, very low.

Peridot was a woman of science, so that reassured her greatly. The teapot whistled and Peridot approached it, getting out a large mug to pour the hot water into. “Huh. The tea’s ready. That seemed a bit quicker than usual.” She shrugged.

**Lapis:**

Lapis may have seemed to give off the air of “an ice cold woman of mystery” at times, but underneath, she was mostly a woman afraid for her life, which only reared its ugly head when it was most essential to her. Reasoning not much different than Peridot’s went through her head as well, but there was no reason not to check, just in case. The original panic subsided to methodical searching, which in turn subsided to annoyance at Peridot’s casualness about the whole thing.

“To you, that may have seemed like too much, but believe me, it is in both of our best interests to not get caught on the first day. Myself, most likely more than you,” she spoke, the hostility of her words more out of defense for her embarrassingly erratic behavior just beforehand than actual disdain for the scientist

**Peridot:**

She sighed at this, honestly knowing that it wasn’t as though she had much choice either way. If they messed up, Peridot would be arrested as a traitor, a certain conviction, and Lapis would...Well, if half of the things she’d heard about Russia were true, it wouldn’t be pretty.

“Okay. Fine. I understand what you’re trying to say. Proper, protective paranoia.” She smiled a little at the alliteration. “Just to make sure that I don’t end up in front of the FBI or the HUAC and you don’t end up...Wherever.”

**Lapis:**

“Thank you for understanding,” she said in a quiet yet genuine tone. It might have been paranoia, but too little of it would end up with a dead Georgian spy, not too much of it. After conducting what she considered a satisfactory check of the apartment for bugs or anything similar, she returned to the table. “Looks like you were correct on this one, although checking is still important.”

Once not fearing for her well-being, she was able to get a better look at the iced tea that Peridot was drinking. It looked like it was teeming with sugar (albeit it was America, she reasoned), much more than Lapis felt like she could handle. Hard liquor? Any day, but too much sugar just tasted… wrong. “I won’t judge, but how do you drink that stuff? It’s… so sugary.”

**Peridot:**

“Well, when you drink a Coke every few days as a kid, have birthday cakes with frosting, eat popsicles, eat abundant fruit from our many exploited Central American and South American nations, and have cane plantations in the Caribbean sending us sugar, it kind of becomes obvious that sugar in its many forms is as American as democracy or apple pie. Even if apple pie isn’t ours and democracy was invented by the Greeks. See, stealing. Another American tradition. Point is that you get used to sugar. A very circuitous point, but there you go.”

Despite coming from Austin, a segregated city in the South, Peridot wasn’t much of a fan of the US. She reasoned that you got odd ones out of every population, and if anyone was odd, it was Olivia Peridot Marshall. She was aware of her oddness. Having a prosthetic leg made that painfully obvious.

**Lapis:**

“I get the feeling that you make quite a few circuitous points,” Lapis commented with a wry smile, returning the glass of vodka to its rightful place in her hand. At least there was a point, as too many people seemed to forget. “I suppose you get the same thing, coming from the other end of the spectrum. A sort of alcoholic mithridatism, or a sugary one in your case.” Case in point, she took another drink from the glass, ice clinking around the interior.

Lapis didn’t have too radical of a point of view on the USA, mostly being in this situation in the first place because of a misunderstanding and some horrible people from her own country. Although Peridot disliked the US, she could still have her claim to being an American. In Lapis’ case, she wasn’t entirely sure if she was a Georgian, a Soviet, or something in between. It didn’t matter much, but it provided for a sort of nationalistic insecurity that could only be cured by doing what was told. In this case, working against a country that was opposed to both Georgia and the USSR, even if she didn’t have much of a say in the operation.

**Peridot:**

“I make circuitous points, yeah, but that’s mostly just because I talk a lot, and I have a lot of different ideas going on all the time that kind of build on each other. I like to think that’s why I’m such a good scientist.” Not engineer. She isn’t necessarily as happy to be such a good engineer. If she was that important in the project initially to begin with.

Peridot, unlike Lapis, chose this situation of her own free will, risking her life and her legacy to serve the hated communist enemy as a foolish fellow traveler. Most would probably not understand that she needed to, in her love for Americans, protect them from an insane, fascist America. She knew they wouldn’t understand. She liked to think that made her better than them. That thought eased the pain a bit.

**Lapis:**

“As long as you’re good enough of a scientist to get us the clearance and information that we need, I’m happy.” Finishing off the glass, she stood and went to the sink to rinse off the glass. “Did they fully inform you on how this will all work?” Lapis knew the plan already. Marriage license tomorrow, become legally married after the waiting period which would be a week or less, honeymoon in the most romantic of places, New Mexico, before returning to live with Peridot as she worked in Los Alamos. From then on, it was more ambiguous, but the final goal was rather self-explanatory. This had all been briefed to Lapis beforehand, by uppers who wanted to make entirely sure, physically and mentally, that everything would go as planned. She wasn’t sure if Peridot had been briefed entirely, hence the question.

**Peridot:**

“How much do you think the NKVD tells American former military personnel, Lapis? I wasn’t told anything but to come here, to know your hand-knocking-sign-thing, and to listen to your instructions. I think they wanted to minimize the chance of me turning heel, calling you out as a communist, and becoming a hero for exposing a Russian agent on American soil, as if we don’t have enough of those already, despite everyone’s best efforts. This intelligence crap is...I don’t know the word, but it’s something. I mean, you probably know it a lot better than me, but still. At some point, though, you really should try a cola. If you’re going to be an American, you should get used to sugary foods. It’s not like there aren’t Americans who don’t like sugar, but it’s a little weird, and a little weird can lead to everything being exposed.”

**Lapis:**

She sighed. Peridot was right, of course, she would have to get used to it. Sugary sacrifices had to be made in the name of… well, they had to be made at any rate. It would take practice not to grimace at the taste, though. “Fine, but not today. That flight was too long for me to have to muck up the rest of my day with that sticky saccharine crap. Now, let’s go over everything you need to know to make this work…”

Lapis gave Peridot as best of a briefing as she could, leaving out most of the technical details that weren’t immediately necessary, for discussion later. The timeline, the backstory, and their behaviors towards each other. Essentially, Lapis was to be her loving wife who was often interested in her work, and as a good wife would, Peridot would let her come to the lab with her on occasion. Not enough to raise suspicions, but enough to get what they needed. “Any clarification needed?” She concluded, making eye contact across the table at her.

  
  
**Pearl:**

July 16, 1945

0529 hours

About 35 miles SE of Socorro, NM

If someone had tried to tap her shoulder in those seconds leading up to the test, chances are their inquiry would have gone unanswered, and tap unnoticed at all. Elbow connected to thigh, four long, slender fingers tapped anxiously on cheek, and Stetson/Pork Pie conglomerate of a hat rested flat on her head. Eyes narrowing, her gaze scanned the arid landscape that lay in front of the control bunker, only shapes visible now in the faint off-black of the New Mexico sky. Twenty seconds.

They had decided to place her and Groves in two different viewing bunkers, in hopes that if some accident occurred one would be spared to continue leadership at Los Alamos and on the project. Necessary foresight, of course, but she prayed not also foretelling. Three years of meticulous research and experimentation, countless personnel, and some of the brightest minds of the generation were leading up to this test. Fifteen seconds.

She recalled the train ride, back in 1942, which secured her position as director of the to-be-built laboratory somewhere out west. Groves had seen something in her, whether it was the wide breadth of knowledge stored somewhere under that hat, the undeniable enthusiasm for physics which had annoyed many a colleague during her university years, or the overweening ambition, and picked her for the position. Her. Julia Pearl Oppenheimer, the daughter of a German immigrant and a painter, now director of the project which could spell the end of the war. Ten seconds.

There were doubts about the choice, of course. She had almost no administrative experience, there was no Nobel Prize tucked under her belt, but Pearl was more than eager to prove the naysayers wrong. They began selecting the site immediately, eventually deciding on a small private ranch school for boys in Los Alamos county. One year later, construction was finished, and the real work began. Five seconds.

So, there she sat, apprehensively awaiting what could either be the war-killer, a total dud, or something worse. Four, three, two, one.

Much later on, Groves would write her, asking about the name of the test site. Trinity. Some believed it was chosen for its commonality, to avoid any special attention, but Pearl had chosen it in remembrance of a poet, John Donne, a 17th century Anglican who wrote oftentimes about that holy triumvirate.

 _Batter my heart, three person'd God_.

Zero.

The New Mexico desert that morning radiated brighter than the light of all three of that union, and Pearl knew that her choice was the correct one. Several around her broke out in cheers, one patting her on the back, but Pearl merely slumped back in her chair, sighing in relief and gratitude. All eyes remained on the conflagration that lay in front of them, billowing upwards in a shape that someone would later refer to as the mushroom cloud.

“It worked,” came her breathless reply to the buzzing air around her, a victorious smirk emerging which spread quickly into a grin. Someone in the bunker nudged someone else, mentioning something about ten dollars owed. The heat hit not long after, a shock wave rattling the ground around them, and then it was over, slowly subsiding. Pearl turned in her seat, tipping her hat to the various scientists, administrators, and other observers. “Good work, everyone,” she spoke, solace and triumph shining through her voice as she stood, perfectly linear in her usual fashion.

The atomic age had begun, for better or for worse, John Donne’s God had been replaced by another, and Pearl’s heart was battered indeed.

**Peridot:**

Peridot Marshall. Well, she had a first name, but who knew it? Honestly? She knew that Pearl would be the one to gain the credit. She’d heard what Pearl had said. Well, not in person. But she’d heard. Hearsay. “It worked.” How fucking simple. It worked. As if they’d just made a new washing machine, or a toaster. It worked.

Peridot was never important to anything, but she had an acquaintance. A general with the ear of Leslie Groves. Lianne Jaspers. People just went with Jasper. Jaspers preferred Jasper. Thought Lianne sounded ridiculous. She didn’t like General Jasper, but she at least had a slightly better idea through Jasper of what the plan was for the new weapon.

Mass murder. Well, that was war, wasn’t it? That was what Jasper’s main opponent in the Air Force said, anyway. War was war. It wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary. Fuck that. Peridot had helped to build a weapon of unimaginable murder, and she’d let that stupid clod Oppenheimer hand it over to this country. She was a Texan, of course. She had nothing against Americans. America, though? Well, there were two bombs. She had no doubt that only one would serve to get the Empire of Japan to surrender. She also had no doubt that they’d drop both. It was a matter, she knew, of office politics.

The Jasperite (as she called it) route of dropping both bombs to establish American superiority and break Japan, or, as Peridot preferred to think of it, because we had two bombs lying around, or the Bismuthite route of simply dropping the one, because while horrors may be necessary for war, we should only do what we have to, and for a greater good. She knew that most of her associates would line up behind one side or the other. She, though, thought that was a false dichotomy.

Sitting here in her room in the military camp that had produced the new atomic god, Peridot came to a final conclusion. It took a single painter with a mad vision a microphone and a stage to create a nightmarish display of industrialized evil and a war to span the world. What would a country with a weapon that could vaporize cities do? Especially a country riding on the sense of power those weapons brought, and the joy she knew would come with victory?

What would be the American swastika?

Peridot decided that the great Pearl Oppenheimer, the prodigy, could have her fame. It would be up to a crippled Texan to save America. God knew nobody else would.


	2. Chapter 2

**Pearl:**

It was August 5th, almost a month after the test at Trinity, and the original euphoria of success had been slowly replaced with anxiety and guilt, at least for Pearl. It was her, after all, not to brag, but the bomb would never have been ready in time without her intellect. Perhaps it saved lives, indirectly, but she also knew it was directly going to vaporize lives, and that wasn’t a perhaps. The first bombing, later today (Well, August 6th, but that was in Japanese time), was necessary. Even Pearl knew that. The Japanese had to be contained and this was the only way to scare them back into their rightful spot.

Another one, though? They had decided to use another one, just for the hell of it, or whatever the reason, but she knew that if it was her decision that would have never gone through. The problem with having doubts about something as grave as this was the accusations. She was very used to those, the sister of a communist, and any sort of dissent could spell the end of her career and possibly worse. So these thoughts had been rattling around in her brain since the decision, and without some spilling they would explode out at one point or another.

There weren’t many people at Los Alamos that Pearl could consider “friends,” mainly colleagues, but Amy “Amethyst” Feynman was one of them.

The nickname had been coined sardonically after a weekend outing in Albuquerque, during which they had pushed her into doing a palm reading from a less than genuine fortune teller. “You radiate of the amethyst!” The lady had exclaimed almost immediately after contact with her palm, much to the snickering of Pearl and the others. Amethyst, the birthstone of February, not even close considering Amy had been born in May, but the nickname stuck if only to serve as a means to tease.

Amethyst was a major group leader in the theoretical sciences division of the facility,and God knows how she would have gotten that position without a little help from Pearl on the interior. She was capable, of course, Pearl wouldn’t have given her the role otherwise, but she might have been the least organized soul in all of New Mexico. This was apparent as Pearl knocked twice on the door to her office, before opening the door herself a sliver. Her entire desk was covered in different papers, folders, and books, each volume dog-eared to all hell. Different stacks of manuals and other trinkets scattered the rest of the office, leaving little room for the constantly smirking scientist at the desk.

There was another in the office, that Pearl didn’t recognize. She assumed rather quickly that they most likely got along, considering the rumpled and disheveled quality to this other’s clothes. Pearl waved simply, a formal smile that she wasn’t really getting into appearing on her face. “Good afternoon.”

**Amethyst:**

“Hey, P! Come on in.” Amethyst spoke with the casual tone of someone who hadn’t seen a good friend in a while, waving her in. “What’s buzzin’, cousin?” Not many people spoke to Pearl with such a laid-back air, being director of the entire laboratory, but with Amethyst it was inevitable.

**Pearl:**

“I’m doing alright, I believe, and how are you...two… doing?” Pearl tilted her head in the direction of the other in the room.

**Amethyst:**

“Oh, right!” Amethyst brought a palm to her forehead, chuckling. “This is an old pal of mine, Peridot Marshall. She’s an engineer for us. Peri, this is… well, I’ll give you one guess.” She let another hearty laugh out, standing up and balancing herself with one hand on the table. “Hey, I’ll be right back, gonna grab a cola. You two get to know each other!” She seemed to be an expert at avoiding the various crap that littered the floor, patting Pearl on the arm as she left the room.

**Pearl:**

Pearl remained where she was, nodding again, now at Peridot instead of to her, pulling her lips tight in that manner of acknowledgement. “Er, hello there.” This wasn’t exactly what she was hoping for out of this encounter, so far.

**Peridot:**

She could have, and would have given a thimbleful of wine, gone after Pearl for her abomination of science and for the Pandora’s box that she opened up. Peridot and Dr. Oppenheimer never had the best relationship. While Pearl likely had no idea who Peridot was, unlike the famous Amy Feynman, who Peridot knew for a fact was a close friend of Pearl. Peridot was conflicted about one of the greatest minds of their generation.

On one hand, J. Pearl Oppenheimer was the difference between the Empire of Japan slaughtering even more innocents and conquering Asia, and a brilliant physicist besides. On the other hand, J. Pearl Oppenheimer was the lead scientist on this project they all were part of, the one that may have either doomed the world or, more likely, set the stage for the atomic-powered American Empire. Also, Peridot always found Pearl to be just so obnoxiously smug in her vaunted knowledge and more than willing to talk down to people.

“Hi.” She waved. “Get me a Coke while you’re out.” She waved at Pearl. “Dr. Oppenheimer. Pleasure. Dr. Marshall. As Amethyst mentioned, I’m an engineer. I did most of my work on the Mark III.” For those unaware, Peridot was talking about the Fat Man. The one that Jasper was planning to use.

Say what you will about Cordelia Lewis, or “Bismuth” as a joke at Los Alamos called her (Bismuth is the highest atomic mass that’s stable, and some of the scientists saw in her a slightly more stable atomic policy than Jasper’s need for strength above all else), but at least General Lewis wasn’t going to bomb a city to make a point after the nation that city belonged to had most likely surrendered. Frankly, if the stories she’d heard about the Trinity test were true, she had no idea how anyone wouldn’t surrender afterward.

“Is there a reason you came here, Dr. Oppenheimer?” She tried to make that sound not hostile. Really. She put in effort. She failed miserably of course, but, well, that was to be expected from a disgusting commie lover.

**Pearl:**

Pearl let her eyes inspect the apparent engineer that she now shared the room with. She wondered to herself exactly how much she knew about the operations, reasoning that Amy had most likely filled her in on some of the broader ideas. She could be talkative like that.

Doctor Marshall. Peridot’s assumptions were correct, Pearl hadn’t heard the name before, as if it was possible to keep track of all of the directors and associate directors and group leaders in the facility, much less everyone else. There was also the inherent bias against engineering- herself and Feynman were both in the theoreticals, when not participating in the administrative duties, and in her experience engineers tended to completely ignore the true beauty of the theorems and formulae they used. There was beauty in mathematics and physics, yes, some people found it hard to believe but certain discoveries were shockingly perfect. As she watched the Trinity test, there was a beauty there, from a distance of course. But Trinity was unapplied, and now that they were actually _using_ what had been created- but she was going on a tangent. The bias was there.

“The Mark III, yes,” Pearl commented absentmindedly. She tended at times to get sucked up into thought, and it wasn’t until she registered the following question in her brain that she snapped out of it. “I’m really not quite sure if you’re in the appropriate position to be asking something like that, Doctor Marshall,” came the instinctively defensive reply. “Yet… have you ever been unsure? About what you’re work is for, I mean.” The thoughts were beginning to spill out, they couldn’t be held under high pressure for much longer, and Peridot just happened to be the one who was going to get at least part of it, instead of Amethyst. ”Do you feel as if you’re doing the right thing?”

Of course, Pearl knew nothing of Peridot’s treasonous thoughts, she expected yet another mindless do-what-was-told engineer, but the questions came forwards anyways.

**Peridot:**

She had two options here. There was the smart thing to do, which would be to shake her head, apologize to her superior, and say that, no, she usually didn’t think about that kind of thing. There was also the Peridot thing to do, which would be to go on a long rant about all of the dangers and ethical concerns she’d been bottling up for weeks. Time to do the Peridot thing to do.

“Actually, now that you mention it, I do worry about what we’ve created. I’m not saying that it might be the single most vile thing humanity’s ever produced or anything...” She was saying that. “However, it does carry with it an incredible responsibility, and I’m not sure if we’ll always be able to maintain that responsibility. I just don’t know what we can do about it. It was just a job, right? After this I’ll probably go to a national laboratory somewhere, you’ll go back to teaching in Yale or whatever...”

She knew exactly what she could do about it, and it was pretty obvious. She’d honestly had doubts since about halfway through the construction of the Mark III, and she’d had dream after dream, night after sleepless night of running through her possible options. It was just that...Dammit.

“Honestly, I think we’ve created a monster, Dr. Oppenheimer, and when you said ‘It worked’, I was kind of shocked at the...irreverence of it. We’ve weaponized splitting the atom and you get to see the first test, and your words are ‘it worked’. With all due respect to your station and your obvious superiority academically and your many responsibilities as an administrator, I would have chosen a very different few words. I’m probably in no place to moralize, being that I built one of them, but ‘God have mercy’ might have fit. Although, that could be the Texan in me speaking.” Her accent, while faint, was there.

**Pearl:**

Had this conversation taken place before July 16th, the next words out of Pearl’s mouth might have been something along the lines of “You’re fired,” but now it felt as if she was looking in a shorter, messier mirror. “Hm,” was the word, or noise, that did come out first, nodding along as Peridot concluded her speech. One hand returned to her chin. It wasn’t just her.

“It was a means to an end, but I’m afraid that it’s not ending when I intended it to. ‘It worked’ was a simple reaction, a relieved exclamation, and a rather selfish one at that. I… I don’t want to be remembered as a killer, Doctor Marshall.”

Not sure what else to say, Pearl managed to stare at a stack of books about two feet to the right of Peridot for some time, before adding one comment. “Berkeley, by the way, not Yale.” She may have just succeeded in the mass killings of thousands of foreigners, but she still had pride in her previous place of work and study.

**Amethyst:**

“Damnit…” Amethyst rapped on the glass fronting to the vending machine, which had just eaten up her spare change without so much as acknowledgement. “We build the biggest bomb on the planet but can’t design a machine that can give me my damn drink when I want it to,” she grumbled, ruffling through her pockets to find another nickel.

**Peridot:**

“Look. We can’t decide who remembers us, or for what. That’s a matter of other people to decide, and basically at random. You might be known as the brilliant professor who stopped a war. You might have your entire legacy overshadowed by Little Boy and the Fat Man. I’ve long since tried to make peace with that. History will regard us as history chooses to. Damn. That was actually really witty. Good job, Peridot. Also, the thing with that is that most of us probably won’t be remembered for anything by anyone but our families.”

Her best guess was that Amy Feynman and J. Pearl Oppenheimer would become household names, with the war guilt put on the people ordering the dropping and not the scientists. That was the way it worked, honestly. People thought this was the good war, so if anyone was going to feel guilt for anything, it wasn’t going to be the scientists. After all, history said, someone else would have done what they did in their place.

History was bullshit. Maybe Peridot was wrong. She probably would be. She usually was. Who knew, though? On one hand, Peridot’s sentiment about not thinking too hard about how history defines us was genuine and heartfelt. She did, however, think that our actions can define how we’re seen. That was why she didn’t think about it. J. Pearl Oppenheimer would be remembered as a titan of physics and a woman who changed the world. Dr. Olivia Peridot Marshall, however? Before Los Alamos, Peridot knew she’d be forgotten by everyone but her friends and family, and given a generation or two it would be as if anyone had done the work she did in her field. No. Now she knew she might just be remembered. If she fucked this up. So she hoped not to be remembered as a hero, but to be forgotten as yet another engineer, rather than remembered as a traitor who gave America’s enemies the most powerful weapon in existence.

**1950 - House Un-American Activities Committee, Congress, Washington DC**

**Peridot:**

“Dr. Marshall, did you associate with a known Russian spy, Lapis Lomidze?”

“She was Georgian.”

“Is that relevant?”

“Well, no, but as she isn’t here to speak for herself I would like to point that out.”

 

**1945 - Los Alamos, New Mexico**

**Peridot:**

“Pearl, I would trust in God that you are remembered as a hero, and I’d try to outweigh this thing we’ve made with contributions to the world. God knows that I’m going to devote myself for making up for this. Of course, I’m not telling you that you have to. I’m merely noting that that’s what I’m going to do. To atone. You can do whatever you want.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl opened her mouth to speak, but instead they both heard Amethyst making her way back down the hall to her office. “Sorry about the wait, fellas!” She called, and Pearl narrowed her eyes at Peridot. “Do not bring this conversation up again under any circumstances,” she spoke in a hushed tone. “And… thank you for your thoughts.”

**Amethyst:**

The door flung open, and Amethyst re-entered, one bottle in each hand. “Catch!” She threw one bottle underhanded in Peridot’s direction, before cracking open the other for herself. “Now, what can I do you for, P?”

**Pearl:**

The original reason for coming had been so kindly fulfilled by one Doctor Marshall, of all people. “Just checking in, glad to see that you’re doing alright as always and it was a pleasure speaking with your friend.” She offered a closed smile to Amethyst.

**Amethyst:**

“She’s a real treat, huh? Anytime, Oppie, and give yourself a break every now and then, alright? You deserve it.” She raised the bottle in Pearl’s direction, before taking a long drink. She could tell that Pearl seemed a little off, attributing it to the long days they had all been putting in recently. Sure, there might have been one or two regrets, but this entire project was Pearl’s brainchild and a mighty good one at that. They were doing what was right for humanity, and if they didn’t develop the bomb, someone in Germany would, and then they would be screwed, to put it lightly.

**Pearl:**

Pearl nodded, a more genuine smirk returning to her face. Amethyst was quite the expert at lifting her spirits without actually addressing the reasons behind it, even if for only a short time. “Thank you, Amethyst. You two take care.” With that, she exited the office, careful to avoid tripping on a book.

**1950 - House Un-American Activities Committee, Congress, Washington DC**

**Peridot:**

The HUAC hearing room was actually unlike what Peridot expected. The trial of a rogue scientist who used a feigned relationship (It wasn’t feigned) to smuggle atomic secrets out of the country was, of course, well known by this point, and so the room, which felt more like a fancy restaurant lined with observation seats behind a small wall, compressed into a tiny, cramped room more than anything else, was packed with people. She had asked to defend herself in court.

This was, of course, standard, and so Dr. Marshall was roundly laughed at, because this wasn’t a court, this was a hearing, and the idea that one of the most hated women in the US didn’t understand a difference that simple was amusing. Peridot had muttered some insults, swear words, and the word “clods” at that a few times, and so right now she appeared in court in her slightly battered suit, her hair turned into something manageable. She wished that Lapis Lazuli was here. To her, she’d always be Lapis Lazuli. The woman with some great story in Cincinnati that she’d never heard. Her loving wife. She eventually, right when everything fell apart, knew who she really was. Peridot didn’t care. Night Witch, aviatrix, Russian turncoat pressured by, ironically, a very distant relative of General Jaspers... She integrated that into her knowledge of Lapis, but just as she wouldn’t want to be defined by the Mark III, she tried not to define Lapis by who she was.

“Do you admit that you married a Soviet spy to smuggle secrets through her to the USSR?” She was asked.

“Yes, but with the caveat that it was a legitimate marriage. Legally, it all checked out, albeit under an assumed name, and I did love her.”

“So you’d be a fellow traveler, then?”

Peridot was aware that ‘fellow traveler’ was a euphemism for ‘useful idiot’, but said nothing. “I’m an American, and a proud one, who had a wife, who was also an American. In a sense.”

That got the crowd laughing. “An American?” She was asked. She nodded. “Everything I did was to keep my country from becoming a fascist state. I saw Germany, Italy, Japan. My time at Los Alamos was justified as fighting fascism. I wasn’t letting America fall to the temptation of being the only atomic nation.”

“Well, thanks to many like you, we’ve entered something far worse. The potential for nuclear annihilation. You revoked the right to call yourself an American when you betrayed our government.”

“The government and the people are two very different things. West Germans bear little resemblance to Hitler and Goebbels, for example. Anyway, for my part in mutually assured destruction, I apologize. I simply ask that President Truman and Stalin do the same. I tried to solve one problem, it led to another.”

**1947 - An Apartment Outside of Houston, Texas**

“No, I don’t need any clarification. That actually seems to be a pretty airtight plan.” She shrugged. “I know you’re a commie, so God really isn’t a thing, but forgive me when I say that God help us both. They’re going after goddamn film directors and movie stars here, and Russia I assume is even worse. That might just be me used to what I’m told here, though. I don’t know shit about Russia. It could be the moon, when it comes to most things. All I know is rumors and that we need to keep it as the one thing to keep this place in check. More vodka?”

**Lapis:**

“It’s probably best if we keep it that way, so that in a worst case scenario the government here in America doesn’t find out any more than they need to. Yes, please.” She lifted her glass to Peridot, drained down to just ice. It took some effort to not vocally differentiate between Georgia and Russia, in the same way that Peridot might have felt if someone had mistaken Texas for a much larger and more overbearing parallel of California.

“I’m glad that you believe in the plan, considering it’s the only thing we have. We’ll have to act more… affectionate in public, of course, as to not raise suspicions. I hope you’ll be able to act believably enough on that end,” Lapis added. She was willing to act out the part, of course, but at the time it was nothing more than a cordial relationship at best.

**Peridot:**

“Well, I can’t act believably for shit, especially not in dealing with a relationship. However, being that this literally is a matter of imprisonment, I can genuinely try to find things in you that I love and work with that. It would allow this to actually succeed, and I’ll try not to make you too uncomfortable. Honestly, I wish there was an alternative, but while you’re a career spy, I’m a scientist and a former bridge engineer who has the social skills of a dead rat. So not faking it is probably the best option for me, on my end. Fake as much as you want. It’s going to be horrible on my end, but it’s better than everything else.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

She continued. “Anyway, that horribly awkward note aside...” She took the glass and refilled it. She wasn’t intending to get Lapis drunk, she was sort of just trying to be a polite hostess, and she assumed that Lapis could hold her liquor. “How familiar are you with American pop culture? That’s probably another potential issue waiting to happen.”

**Lapis:**

“It might be helpful if at first, I’m the one who does most of the talking when the subject of our relationship comes up. If it’s possible for you to keep your mouth closed for that long,” she couldn’t resist sliding in that last bit with a faint knowing smile.

She sipped at the glass, before setting it back down at the table. “Thank you. As for pop culture, all I was told was that I would be able to pick up the majority rather quickly. Listen to the radio, when you get the chance, is what they said, and read the magazines. I will need to get on that fairly soon, would you like to do the honors of giving me a quick crash course?” Something to pass the time, at least, and although she didn’t say it directly she was entirely clueless when it came to American pop culture.

**Peridot:**

“Well, my honest suggestion there would be to keep up with magazines if you can but try not to sweat that much, listen to some radio, I think you might like _Dragnet_ , if it isn’t too close to home, that kind of thing. Honestly it’s probably less of an issue than I thought. Bigger thing’s pretty obvious. Don’t get drunk anywhere anyone or anything could be listening. I know you probably know this, being a professional spy, but yeah. I don’t drink because I’m a scientist, but being a scientist’s wife you might be expected to at times, so, as expected, make sure you don’t get drunk. Even if this becomes the miserable hell it’s almost certain to become.” She laughs hollowly at that.

“Anyway, we have about a week until this actually begins, don’t we? Do you think we should ‘practice’, or take the opportunity to get to know each other as people without that whole deal getting in the way? I honestly have no fucking idea.” You know, when she planned to defect to the Soviet Union, in her way, she sort of didn’t expect all of this minutiae.

**Lapis:**

“I’ll keep that in mind, and I should be able to pick up fairly quickly on the culture bits. It doesn’t seem too high brow.” Lapis had quite the tolerance for alcohol, but she knew that there was no need to even come close to risking their lives over something as ridiculous as drinking too much, so in public she would keep it limited.

Practicing was definitely going to be needed, to iron out their nerves and uncomfortableness. They were going to be married, and Lapis had the feeling that Peridot had had limited experience in that sector up until now. Just a hunch. “Well, if we are going to get the marriage license tomorrow, the county clerk should at least think we’re comfortable with each other. Come over here.” Lapis stood, offering a hand. They would have to get the affectionate part out of the way at one point or another.

**Peridot:**

She had had exactly three romantic entanglements in her entire life. The first was in high school, with Richie Marcus. That didn’t go perfectly. This led to her next entanglement, also in high school, with Richie’s ex-girlfriend, Betsy Bright. That lasted until senior year when Betsy moved to Arkansas. Her final entanglement was with one Amy Feynman, and lasted for approximately the time it took for them to have drunk sex in the bathroom of a New Mexico bar. It was terrible sex, and they agreed never to speak of it again.

None of these were stellar examples of what one should or could do with a romantic relationship, and so frankly Peridot hoped that this would be better than high school drama or casual sex. She went over to Lapis and tentatively held her hand. “I hope that in Russia you had a Casanova-like love life, Lapis.” She snorted.

**Lapis:**

She grinned, the first genuine smile in a while, and grabbed Peridot’s hand. “Well, at least my fake wife has a similar sense of humor. Hand holding, check. Now, try putting your arm around my waist, considering if I tried the same thing I’d have to bend down pretty far.”

Although Lapis had no feelings for Peridot at this moment, she didn’t feel particularly uncomfortable going through the motions. They both had their reasons and after what she had gone through back across the ocean, she wasn’t going to let something like this stand in her way of doing what she needed, no, what they needed her to do.

Peridot: She reached up and wrapped her thin arm around Lapis’ waist, her kelly green sweater brushing against Lapis. “Well, my sense of humor is mostly terrible jokes, pessimism, and self-depreciation, so I hope that’s accurate?” She laughed again. “Look. Lapis. I’m sorry to saddle this onto you, but probably best to put it out in the open.

“I’m afraid. I’m really, really goddamn afraid. I’m afraid for you, just, in a fear for another human being way, but I’m honestly mostly afraid for myself, and for the careers of my colleagues if they get tarred with me. I’m afraid of becoming the enemy. Damn. No, you’ve probably gone through a lot worse than my middle-class, educated American life. I shouldn’t be whining to you. Sorry.” She sighs a bit.

**Lapis:**

Lapis brought her Peridot-adjacent arm around to the scientist’s more distant shoulder, sighing a bit herself. “We both have a lot to lose. There’s no use in comparing what those losses are, or it’ll just tear us both apart. Believe me.” She let her eyes gaze down to the shorter of the two. It was clear how genuine her fear was, and she felt just as terrified. It might have hid under more layers, but it was there.

“It’s important to let those thoughts out privately when they come to you, so you can stay level-headed and not slip up while we’re in public. You’re getting the hang of this pretty quickly.”

**August 7th, 1945 - Airport Restaurant in Albuquerque**

**Jasper:**

“Lianne Jaspers, you’ll never amount to much.” That was what her parents said. Maybe that wasn’t right for a ma to say, or for a pop to repeat. In Jasper’s book, your parents were your parents, and they did what they wanted. After all, they made you. However, Lianne Vera Jaspers had proved them all wrong very quickly. At the moment, she was a hardened woman of 51 years old, born in Bakersfield, California in 1894. She’d been in the army through both World Wars, had seen America fight Spain and the Germans twice. Jasper liked to say that she had been made to fight.

She had first heard the theories about air war. Thought them overblown. They’d said that planes would make all other war obsolete, if a force could strike anywhere. That wasn’t the case. However, all these years later, the young woman laughing about canvas planes had seen what Groves’ Enola Gay went and dropped in Groves’ bunker, and she had to admit that maybe air war was going to change the world after all. She’d been with it for all these years. She’d like to hope so.

So maybe that was why she was here, in this airport restaurant in Albuquerque, sitting at a table with a steak and her main opponent in the Court of King Groves, General “Bismuth”. Cordelia Lewis. Honestly, Jasper was insulted by the nickname. Anyone who talked to Bismuth knew that she was a skilled commander but far from sane. She cut her steak a bit viciously, as though she expected it to jump. “General Lewis. Thanks for coming here on such short notice. I’m sure you know what I’d like to discuss with you.”

**Bismuth:**

Cordelia “Bismuth” Lewis didn’t remember her mother, but on those particular days when her father felt ‘reflective,’ she would be treated to a few stories and quotes from the late great Mrs. Lewis. One stuck in her mind very clearly: “Have love for everyone, but if someone strikes you, you sure as hell strike back.” A mantra, of sorts, that hadn’t led her wrongly yet and she planned on applying for as long as she needed to.

Any other patrons in the restaurant might had mistaken her and Jasper for cousins, until either of them opened their mouths of course. Fifty-three years old, Bismuth might have had an intimidating exterior but to those who she was on good terms with, she was quite the opposite, always cracking jokes and keeping morale high. To those she was on bad terms with, that was a different story.

Bismuth didn’t dislike Jasper, and she would have much liked to have the other general on her side. She could be a useful asset if she wasn’t so bent on pushing it as far as she’d like to. So, waiting on a hamburger in that airport restaurant, she had agreed with herself to begin with some friendly banter and persuasion which would follow that up. “Jasper, it’s been a while! I’d give you a handshake but you look pretty interested in that steak. I don’t blame you, that was my second choice. What can I do for you today?”

**Jasper:**

She looked Bismuth in the eye, her hulking frame only slightly withered with age, and sighed. There was really no easy way to put it. She didn’t want to just say that she won. Even though, frankly, she did win. This was more courtesy than anything. “Bismuth.” She used the nickname, to at least pretend that she cared that much about Lewis.

“We’re dropping the Mark III over Nagasaki tomorrow. The decision’s been made.” The subtext here was ‘I won’. It really was. “Look...I know this is probably hard for you, I know that you were...vehement in your insistence that we needed to be careful with the bombs, but between Japanese fanaticism and the Russians, we don’t have a choice.

“If we don’t get Japan to surrender now, the Russians will, Bismuth. Then we end up in the upcoming fight against Stalin at a disadvantage. We drop both bombs, or we don’t get a free Japan and a disadvantaged Soviet Union. Groves and the USA agree with me. It’s happening. I think we need to show that the US is strong enough to take on anyone. We made Spain back down, we made the Kaiser back down, you saw it, we made Hitler back down, now it’s Hirohito and Stalin. We’re looking them in the damn eye, Bismuth.” She sighed again. “Anyway...I’m paying for the food, just so you know. Truce?” She laughed a bit. Jasper wasn’t usually like this. It was clearly not genuine in any way.

**Bismuth:**

“I…” What could she say? She had made her argument to everyone that would hear it, and a few who wouldn’t, including the woman who sat across the table from her. Apparently they hadn’t even had the respect for her to let her sit down at the meeting when they decided, she had to be told second-handedly afterwards.

Bismuth was not against the bomb. She made very clear that it was never construed that way. Bismuth was willing to use any means necessary to stop the advance of enemy forces and continue the spread of American democracy across the globe. ‘Necessary’ was the key word, and Nagasaki was not necessary. The mere threat of another strike would be enough, yet Jasper, Groves, and whoever else were set on vaporizing tens of thousands of civilians to make a point.

Bismuth could get very… physical in times of fury, and she compromised to grip onto the edge of the table to keep herself from lashing out. “You always wanted to give it to those Japanese for Pearl Harbor, huh?” She laughed, hollowly, as if her spirit had been sucked out entirely. Staring down at the table, resisting the urge to flip it. “We’re going to pay for this, in this life or the next. Mark my words. And you can keep the damn burger, I’ve lost my appetite.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**1950 - House Un-American Activities Committee, Congress, Washington DC**

“Did you, or did you not, use associations with Generals Jaspers and Lewis in your treasonous acts?”

“I did not.”

“Do you have any proof?”

“Other than ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Well, Bismuth, sorry, General Lewis insisted we use the monster I played a part in creating, and Jaspers had the geopolitical good sense to suggest we unleash the damn thing again.”

“That doesn’t answer our question.”

“You know me. Would I associate with someone I personally found morally objectionable?”

“Would that include a NKVD spy?”

“It might. It would not, however, include an immigrant from Soviet Georgia to Cincinnati, who I fell in love with in an apartment in Texas.”

“Don’t lie to the committee, Dr. Marshall.”

“I wasn’t.”

 

**1947 - An Apartment Outside of Houston, Texas**

**Peridot:**

“Yeah. It’s probably best to express this kind of thing now.” She said, as though the very words were her resigning herself to her fate. She wasn’t sure if she was a fanatic for doing this, for sacrificing everything. Fanatic, romantic, completely insane...She had no idea. 

“Can we do...anything else, Lapis? I don’t want to think about this too hard. I’m going to overthink everything if I do.” Her breaths began to quicken. “I tend to overthink things, especially when I don’t...Whatever.”

**Lapis:**

“Maybe it’s all that American sugar running around in your brain,” she suggested with a short laugh at her own joke, before taking her hand off of Peridot and letting her have some space. “I can tell you’ll pick up quickly, anyways, it’s not going to be an immediate issue.”

Lapis made her way across the kitchen area to a window, picking the glass of vodka back up off the table as she did so. The sun was beginning to set over the much too flat horizon, and she watched it idly, sipping from the glass. It must have been… well, much later at night in her homeland, yet she didn’t feel tired, whether that was nerves, or some other confusing emotion that she didn’t want to think about.

**Peridot:**

“Well, I’m sort of an anomaly even here, so if it’s our sugar I sort of doubt that that’s related to the...Oh. Wait. You were joking. Sorry, I sort of missed that. Yeah, I’m probably just afraid. Isn’t this funny? The vile Soviet infiltrators, spies bent on the destruction of the American way of life...and we’re afraid, detached, trembling, and manic.

“You don’t see this in the newspaper depictions, or in what people expect. I’m sure somehow you have a gun to your head and me? I’m a rank amateur. It’s funny, honestly, to me, in such a weird way, that...Damn. Rambling. Sorry.”

**Lapis:**

“I wouldn’t fully believe anything you see in the papers, there’s as much propaganda over here as there is back where I’m from, or so I’ve heard. It’s natural to be afraid, believe me, I know, and as long as you keep it under wraps while we’re in public I’ll listen to whatever you need to say for as long as you need it. Deal?”

She turned from the window, leaning back against the counter with the glass in one hand and the other resting against the counter. She didn’t express it in exactly the same way as Peridot, or at all really, but if she let it fear would take her over just as much. Apathy was the best combatant, and she tried to use it as often as possible. Sometimes a laugh, as well, but that took effort.

**Peridot:**

Lapis may have had apathy, but honestly, that really wasn’t an option for Peridot, who had either doing her job, which stopped being an option once a city was blown to smithereens partially due to her, and feeling everything as deeply and personally as possible. Okay, that wasn’t it entirely, but sometimes that was how it felt.

“Well, I think we’re proof that a lot of American papers are full of propaganda and lies. Not sure if it’s as bad as the Soviets say it is, but here’s the difference, in my eyes. The Communist Party in the USSR wants to lie to its people. Here, the people want to lie to themselves, and they have papers to help them along.”

**Lapis:**

“Democracy at its finest, I suppose. Still better than the alternatives, yet somehow not. It makes you wonder if this whole thing is inevitable. If the only way history will end is some level of self-destruction… humans really are the worst sometimes.” She raised the glass to her lips again, sighing before taking a drink.

Overall, the day could have gone a lot worse. She showed up at the correct apartment, the woman who was to be her wife she could at least get along with, and she had a glass of vodka in her hand. Things could definitely be worse, and they probably would be eventually.

**Peridot:**

“You know how in the army they talk about people ‘just following orders’, and you know how that’s used a lot to absolve oneself of responsibility? I kind of think sometimes that humanity tending towards self-destruction could be my version of that, if the deal is that no matter what the bombs were going to drop anyway, or whatever.

“I don’t want to believe it. Hey, are you too drunk to get another tea, because as the housewife that would be great, thanks.” Great social skills, Peri. She sighed internally. “Scratch that, I’ll get one myself.”

**Lapis:**

Lapis only felt lightly buzzed, as luckily the glass wasn’t too large at all, but she just snickered at the interesting way to ask the question. “First day and I’m already being ordered around,” she commented, not really offended at all by the request but just responding in the instinctively cynical fashion.

“I think you’re probably as responsible for the bomb as us destroying America with our superior espionage tactics. Even if both of those things succeed, they’re only small steps in something much bigger. I wouldn’t sweat it. Actually, I would, but I’m not always the best to follow by example.”

**Peridot:**

“That’s probably a good point, but it just doesn’t feel that way, you know? To you, yeah, it’s just a miniscule part of a much larger picture. To me, it’s a part I should never have been a part of to begin with. Although a lot of it I think comes from hate. Hate for Groves, for Pearl...

“I never told you about Pearl, did I? She’s brilliant, liked, competent, a skilled administrator...She also came to me after the first test in confidence, well, she came to Feynman, but I was there instead, and we talked. I’ve never forgotten that conversation...Oh dear god.”

**Lapis:**

“Well, you can’t just leave it at that.” Lapis’ eyes followed Peridot as she spoke. She knew who the scientist was talking about, of course, the famed J. Pearl Oppenheimer, the one who headed up the entire operation in New Mexico. Someone whose information on the program would be very valuable if they were to come across it.

“You spoke with Oppenheimer? That’s… impressive, to say the least, and it makes me wish you got more information out of her. Did you? What did you even talk about?” She found herself actually interested, but she couldn’t tell if it was genuine or if her mission (and its consequences if not successful) was doing the talking.

**Peridot:**

“Don’t get too excited. It was nothing about the structural engineering or scientific principles of the bomb. It was guilt. She was horrified at what she’d made, and she came to Feynman, then to me, looking to be told that she was fine, that she did the right thing, that there was no issue. I told her the opposite. I didn’t tell her that I was planning to betray my country, but I expressed my fears and doubts, and she seemed shaken. She also thanked me for the conversation.

“It’s just that...What kind of woman leads the creation of the most powerful bomb in existence and then comes to one of her friends’ offices to try and justify to herself that it’s not going to lead to catastrophe? Pearl, then...I felt sorry for her, I related to her, and I grew to hate her negligence.”

**Lapis:**

She couldn’t deny that she was a little let down at the lack of truly helpful information, but it was still a little surprising to imagine the stately Oppenheimer breaking down to Peridot, of all people. “If what we’re doing here succeeds, then you will be doing all you can do to counteract that negligence. Which is why this is important, at least on your end.”

Lapis took her glass and set it in the sink, letting some tap water wash over the remnants of ice and little remaining liquor. She’d had enough to drink, and returned to face Peridot. “Were you going to get that tea, or should I?”

**Peridot:**

“It wasn’t Pearl who I’m most angry at, though. Not Pearl, Jasper, Bismuth...None of them. It’s Amy Feynman. Amethyst. You know what she’s done since making that bomb? Nothing. I asked her once, she said we had to beat the Nazis and we may as well get to work on beating the commies. I don’t think she really loves America. I think it’s that she...As weird as it is to say, she’s the most dedicated to science of all of us, in her own way.

“She and I were friends. Were. Not are. We even had sex in a bar bathroom once. We got along well, we talked all the time, I learned so much from her, she was a genius...Then the bomb dropped and we...No. I couldn’t...We...It was a mess. We tried to keep the friendship together, but I was willing to sell out the USA for my principles and she’d let anyone do anything to defend it, or, hell, maybe that was just the fucking excuse!” She began to tear up, actually, thinking of her.

**Lapis:**

Crap. Crap crap crap. Lapis could handle a pretty wide variety of scenarios, including having the shit beat out of her, but tears were something foreign to her. She never really thought about it consciously, but crying wasn’t something that Lapis really did. Instead of expressing how she felt externally, through tears and such, she’d retreat inwardly, as far as she could go. So, when Peridot’s eyes began to glisten, her own widened, watching her.

What were you supposed to do, anyways? Tell them it was going to be okay? It wasn’t going to be okay, it was probably going to be the opposite. Give them a hug? That was cheap. Freeze up? More likely, but not correct at all. “No tea, then…” Fuck, that definitely wasn’t it.

**Peridot:**

“Yeah. No tea.” She quickly tried to collect herself, ignoring any unpleasant memories of a certain traitorous scientist. No, not traitorous. Peridot was traitorous. No, Amethyst was too loyal. Maybe. She had no idea. Loyal to the country, loyal to science, just into getting a paycheck and getting to tell some funny stories...? Yeah, that last one sounded like Amethyst.

“It’s not every day you can say that you personally hate a historical figure, isn’t it?” She knew that was what Feynman would become. A historical figure. Like George Washington, Newton, Andrew Jackson, Oppenheimer, or...or her, if she fucked this up. “Although it we fail we could get that distinguished title, right?” She laughed hollowly.

**Lapis:**

Although what Peridot said wasn't exactly positive, it was better than Lapis attempting to deal with emotions. She picked back up quickly. “I'd prefer to be forgotten, on a historical scale. There's no way that either one of us would be portrayed correctly, or even close to it… you think anyone is? I doubt it.” She sighed, one finger tracing the counter absentmindedly.

Lapis had never known Feynman, or Oppenheimer, or anyone of any particular historical significance. If there was even going to be a future generation to remember any of them. City-destroying bombs certainly didn't bode well, considering humanity's less than ideal relationship with war in the past.

**Peridot:**

Peridot, meanwhile, simply told herself that the bombs were expensive to produce, based on a limited resource, and having two powers with them would check each other. Of course, she told herself this because she was about to, if she was wrong, fuel the train of Armageddon, but still. Train of Armageddon. Peridot, come on. That was a terrible metaphor. Analogy? Use of poetic language? Whatever.

“I’d rather be forgotten, too. I think that the people who write the history books don’t like us.” She smiled, mostly to hide the horrible feeling in her gut, that sinking knowledge that she had damned herself, and went to the liquor cabinet. “I need a drink.”

**Lapis:**

She eyed the scientist who had earlier so clearly noted that it wasn't a great idea for her to drink, and internally shrugged. She probably needed something to take her mind off of things anyways. “I don't think I like them either. The historians. So it'll be better if we stay unaware of each other in that regard.” 

If everything went as planned and it was a total success, they wouldn't be remembered at all. That was enough of a reward, besides the other, more life-threatening one. Lack of execution and no future students pompously judging her actions with no context? Enough of a motivation for Lapis, considering not much else was going to push her forward.

**Peridot:**

“I don’t know if you’ve read the Bible, Lapis, being from a communist country...” Peridot, stop having terrible social skills relating to communism. It’s almost like you’re a slightly touched-in-the-head scientist from Texas. Wait. No. That’s exactly what it is. It doesn’t excuse the lack of....Peridot’s inner monologue, just stop.

“...but it describes in detail how sinners will burn in a lake of fire. Some of the sins mentioned are murder and theft, as well as bearing false witness, or lying. So...” She begun to pour out some mid-grade wine into a glass. “Bombs or afterlife, we’re burning together. At least something’s certain.”

 

**August 14th, 1945 - Los Alamos, New Mexico**

**Pearl:**

While much of the facility had spent the day celebrating the success at Nagasaki and surrender of Japan, Pearl found herself returning to her office to be left alone. Despite attempts by colleagues to get her in the celebratory mood, and one attempt by Amethyst to pick the lock on her office door, Pearl swore she was just tired and needed some solitude. So there she was, elbows on the desk in front of her, and hands resting on her chin as she gazed off into space idly.

There was nothing that could be done now, of course. Both bombs had been dropped, both successes, Jaspers had won over Truman and thousands died as a result. Trinity had turned the desert sands into glass. What had Fat Man and Little Boy turned every single citizen of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into? Pearl could have guessed rather easily but tried not to. God, what had they done. 

There was some speculation before Trinity that the initial blast would be at a high enough temperature to ignite the surrounding air and in a chain reaction effectively destroy the Earth's atmosphere. This turned out to be hogwash, of course, but it was certainly possible that such an outcome would have just been a shorter way of achieving the same outcome. This was just speculation on her end, but it was hard not to be pessimistic when you realize what the true scale of the project was. It was easy to fall into line, not looking at the broader scope- practically everyone in the laboratory had. Perhaps if…

All this thinking was going to be the death of her one day, if not her own creation. 

**Peridot:**

Her name was Olivia Peridot Marshall, and she was certain that the cheer and merriment of this place, the joy at V-J Day, was the sign that the entirety of Los Alamos had collectively sold its soul to the devil, herself included. She might say the devil of war euphoria, or the devil of sin in general, but no. Peridot kind of suspected that the literal Prince of Darkness was involved.

At least, she hoped he was. She would like a fucking excuse. Maybe that was why she was here, at the door of Oppenheimer, dressed more messily than everyone else, messy hair, headband, and all, as usual. She knocked on the door three times, in a quick pattern.

“Dr. Oppenheimer. It’s Peridot. Dr. Feynman’s friend. I’m here to talk with you. She wanted me to, actually. Said you were acting queer, had somewhere to be.” She meant ‘queer’, of course, to mean weird. What else would it mean?

**Pearl:**

It took her a moment to register that someone was speaking at all, she had been so withdrawn into herself. She had sent Amethyst off earlier in the day, of course her friend had been concerned but Pearl insisted that it was just fatigue and that she should go enjoy herself. Really, she didn’t want to see the famously witty physicist at all. Jokes felt entirely wrong, and she knew well Amethyst’s defenses (or excuses) for the bomb.

Peridot, though… she recalled the shorter, messy scientist who had happened to hear her spiel out of chance. The only one she had seen on base who had vocally questioned the decision-making to her. It felt simultaneously refreshing to not have to deal with the constant blind “Yes”es and heart wrenching to deal with the fact that the support of another meant that she could be right about the way she felt.

“Peridot?” She called questioningly, in a tone of voice that sounded more out of breath than normal. “Just a second.” Taking her time to rise out of the office chair, using the desk to not lose her balance, she made her way to the door, opening it up and looking down at the shorter scientist. There were bags under Pearl’s eyes, she hadn’t had a good night’s rest in weeks. “What is it?” She asked, letting an annoyed tone color her voice although she knew in the back of her mind she’d be probably spilling to this woman who she barely knew how she felt soon enough.

**Peridot:**

She knew she wasn’t the only dissenter at Los Alamos. She knew many of the people there celebrated the war’s end with heavy hearts, for fallen loved ones, soldiers, Jews, Chinese, Japanese friends in Hiroshima... That was it. She knew none of it mattered. None of it. The bomb still fell, and nobody was going to try to undo it.

“Well, I was hoping to talk to you. About Amethyst. She worries me. Dr. Oppenheimer. I’ve tried to speak to her about the bomb, she evades questions, dances around things, tries to talk about anything else. I once bluntly asked her why she supported it, she told me that she’d rather we have one than the Nazis, and walked away.

“I’m not sure if she did it for science, for the prestige, for the fun of it, or for that goal. She’s inconsistent. She’s just my friend, and seeing someone so okay with something like this, so free of the guilt or euphoria the rest are feeling...I don’t think she’s mentally ill. This is still Amethyst. Maybe she’s avoiding things. She probably is. I’m just worried, Dr. Oppenheimer. I was hoping that you’d know. Amethyst wanted to know why you’re weird, I want to know why Amethyst’s weird.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl had done the same, of course, in futile attempts to discuss the moral ramifications behind what they had created. All after the tests, and especially after the usage. It sickened Pearl to think about how readily and enthusiastically she had approached the task up until then. Like all it was was another challenge to overcome, another mountain to climb, or if she was proving her worth to someone. All that satisfaction was gone now.

Amethyst had been trying in earnest to avoid these thoughts and emotions that Pearl couldn’t help but think and feel, through whatever excuses she could muster, Pearl presumed. Perhaps not entirely true, but it was hard for her to believe that someone could have no regrets for such a thing when they had considered it from all angles. Pearl sighed. “Come in.”

She offered a chair to Peridot, remaining standing herself as she paced lightly behind her desk. “Amethyst… is trying to convince herself that there was a valid reason. You knew her wife, I assume? Arline, before she passed away from tuberculosis? I don’t think she can emotionally handle the fact that she had to neglect her own wife to work on a project like this. I know both of us are having a hard enough time without that added guilt…” she chuckled, devoid of any mirth in the laughter. “And call me Pearl, or Julia, will you? Anything but Doctor.” The title felt sinister to her, now, but she didn’t voice that addition.

**Peridot:**

She entered the office and went to sit down at the chair. “Pearl. That’s foreign to think of. You’ve always been ‘Dr. Oppenheimer’, Pearl, that’s simply how I’ve always thought of you. The prodigy, the genius, my distant superior, Dr. Oppenheimer.”

She shrugged. “I’m aware of Arline and her passing, but I never knew the full extent of what Amethyst...sacrificed to create this beast. I know that we had to do it. I know that we had to make it before the Fuhrer did. I know all of it. I just can’t forgive myself. Maybe I can’t forgive Amethyst either, but Arline deserved better. Even if geopolitics meant she couldn’t get better.

“Christ, Pearl. I know why she’s doing it, but it’s still reprehensible. Insult to injury. You got a coke or something around here? I’m thirsty and I don’t want to kill brain cells like some of the other idiots.”

**Pearl:**

Peridot’s apparent views of Pearl made her want to gag, in a strange way. She had always strived to be looked up to in that way, by anyone, but it felt all wrong, as if the title should be stripped away. “Science and politics need to stay as far away as possible from each other, as I see it now. This technology might win the war but if we aren't careful there might only be one more war, one that isn't going to have any winners. But that's out of our hands now, the lion's been set loose and we can't tame him. We all deserved better, damn it.”

She glanced around her office as if she was entering it for the first time. It was difficult to keep much thinking going when it wasn't related to what was pressuring both of them so much. “You'll have to go down the hall if you want a soda, even director doesn't get their own fridge and pantry. We went high enough over budget on this place as it is.” Always practical and pragmatic, even when it wasn't necessary. An instinctual trait for better or for worse.

**Peridot:**

“Yeah, science and politics need to stay as far away from each other as possible. You’re not the only one to learn that lesson. Or, at least, weaponized science and politics. I’m not going to deny the world the next great advance in agriculture or whatever. By the way, I’m not bothering with a soda. Not worth it.

“Apocalyptic war I don’t see, though. Too expensive to make the bombs, and it’s not like the country’s going to let go of the secret sauce without something happening. No, I think the problem’s a US that has the bombs and all of this bloodlust.

“Deployment in every war, for one. Shows of strength, to ensure a surrender, to destroy valuable materiel, because we can make them...We’re going to use these bombs, and my bet is that fascism hasn’t died. It’s just found a new host, like the parasite that it is. Oh, and we can’t tame the lion, but I’d rather risk the one great war that’d never come than every war being an atomic war. As you said, though, we can’t change anything. So we’re stuck on the sidelines. The creators of the atomic age.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl made a motion as if she was going to gulp but some mental state was keeping her from actually swallowing. Her throat felt dry, as if she hadn’t had a drink in weeks, but there was no thirst. “Neither option is particularly appealing. I hope someone higher up on the chain is having the same thoughts we are, for our sake.

“Truman’s probably going to invite me to the White House at one point or another. After all, I’m the genius who headed up the project to create the damn thing. I’d like to tell him what for… but what can I say? ‘Sir, I think this might be a bad idea?’ I’ll get thrown out of the place, and probably worse… it’s not a good feeling, being powerless. No wonder humans work so hard to attain it. Power. Even if it destroys everyone else in the process.”

**Peridot:**

“Well, right now, you’re talking to someone who’s feeling it even more than you. After this you could go and become a notable speaker against these things getting into more people’s hands, or at least someone to sway public opinion. Dr. Oppenheimer. You have the bully pulpit. Who’s going to listen to Dr. Marshall?”

She sighed. “Sorry. That...That came out wrong. I really shouldn’t have been so rude. You are my superior, and a brilliant physicist. You’ll be mentioned in history for more than just this. You deserve so much better. Anyway, all we can do is put our hope in God, the American people, and our leaders.” She tried to make that sound sincere. Hopefully if she didn’t, and it didn’t, it came across more as sarcastic eye-rolling.

**Pearl:**

It didn’t work, but Pearl didn’t have the energy to do much more than speak. “Don’t try and flatter me or make me feel better with all of that fake bullshit.” The profanity felt foreign to her tongue, not one to use a strong word if it wasn’t necessary, but it slipped out. She sighed. “If you really are against what we’ve done here, you’d hate me as much as you hate the idea of rule by bomb. And I wouldn’t blame you. You certainly wouldn’t be the only one in the room,”she concluded, the disdain fading away as her shaky voice bordered on cracking. She turned partially away from Peridot, to obscure the tears beginning to form.

So there she was, breaking down to a subordinate who she had spoken to only twice. She didn’t even have any special adoration for the woman, they just happened to share some opinions and actually talk, not just blindly support the cause. It was a shame that all of it couldn’t have happened just a few months earlier, as Pearl knew that it was much too late to be acting on regrets now. The deed was done.

**Peridot:**

“No, it’s not fake bullshit. I genuinely respected you.” She tried to cut off the ‘ed’ in that word, to make it sound like she still did. She wished she could lie convincingly even to that little extent. She couldn’t. “I’m going to be honest, Pearl. It’s...It’s going to be okay. I swear to god that it’s going to be okay. Someone’s going to have to fix this.

“I know that you can’t, that you have a life, you have a reputation, friends, ties to those who would hate it, that you have loyalty. I have nothing. The bomb burnt away my life. I swear to god I’m going to fix this. Just trust me, okay? I’ll give my life if I need to to undo our mess. That “god” bullshit? That was the bullshit. I’m a woman who has nothing to lose at this point. I’ll fix things.” She kind of hated Pearl, honestly, but seeing her break down? Peridot wasn’t that cold. She could pretend to be, but did she want to?

**Pearl:**

Pearl made a noise that sounded somewhat like a scoff, and somewhat like someone choking. Somewhere in between, most likely. She would have liked to curl up in a ball under the desk at that point, but she wasn’t going to destroy her dignity any more than she already had at this point with something as embarrassing as that. She almost lashed out, with a desire to mock the shorter scientist. As if someone like her could fix a fuck-up this big. This was the minor narcissism that all humans who held an important position for a long time seemed to acquire, but she kept that part internalized, at least.

“Good luck,” was all she could manage to get out, unclear if it was sincere or the opposite. She had said what she had needed to get out, but there was definitely no good feelings coming out of it. Pearl was quickly retreating back into herself, and lifted a hand in the direction of the door to the office in a gesture, not turning.

 

**1950 - House Un-American Activities Committee, Congress, Washington DC**

**Peridot:**

“Olivia Marshall, can you elaborate on your interactions with Dr. Oppenheimer?”

Peridot sighed at this. Well, she was damned anyway. She could declare that Pearl was a communist. This would be a lie. It would also be a great way of dragging the woman who damned the world down with the woman who tried to save it. She remembered that conversation, though. Pearl breaking down. This wasn’t Hitler, or Genghis Khan. This was a mistake. The worst mistake in human history, but a mistake.

“We had a few technical conversations during the war, and the last conversation I really had with her outside of the very minor orders she gave was about the bomb. I told her that I’d fix things. She laughed. She was distraught. I, obviously, failed in fixing things. I swore that I’d make this right. I failed.”

“You betrayed your country to the communists. How hard is that for you to take in?”

“You have to understand, for the last five years I’ve seen nothing in my dreams but jackboots, complex imaginings of National Guard troopers marching through the streets of my hometown, Austin, of mass executions reported over radio, of some strongman with a nice suit and a winning smile amending the constitution for the very last time, and all the way, I knew that that was the end result of every war being nuclear. I also knew that you fucks would have let that happen! Cheered it on! I’m the American here!”

“Calm yourself. This is a hearing, not a casual discussion.”

“Fine. I failed. Are you happy?”


	4. Chapter 4

**May 8th, 1950 - Airport Restaurant in Albuquerque**

**Jasper:**

They’d arranged the dinner again, as a show of good faith between the two of them. Bismuth had asked, and she probably meant it genuinely. Jasper saw no reason to object. She could be gracious in victory, even if that victory was a bit old. Five years, to be precise. “Cordelia.” She said, looking across the table, eating some chicken breast, this time. “Did you hear about the trial?”

**Bismuth:**

Bismuth nodded, giving an affirmative “Mm!” as she chewed away on that same style burger that she never did get to eat. It was a damn good burger, worth a five year wait. She waited until after swallowing to continue speaking. “The one with the turncoat scientist from Los Alamos? Apparently she was quite the character. Shame she had to go and do something like that to herself. Some were saying they thought she actually did fall in love with that Soviet agent. Crazy stuff.”

She took another bite, looking across the table at Jasper. Of course she still held some reservations between the two of them, but Bismuth wasn’t going to hold a grudge against someone who really did have the country's best interests in mind. It wasn’t worth it, and the strategy had worked effectively enough. Japan surrendered quickly and readily, and things were improving steadily for America, even now.

**Jasper:**

She finished a bite of chicken, looking across at Bismuth. “Honestly, I wouldn’t doubt that she fell in love with a commie spy. Someone who’d try to take nuclear secrets from here to Russia kind of seems dumb enough to. I just think the Russian girl probably didn’t love her back.” She snorted. “I think the whole thing’s a mess from start to finish, and honestly, she deserves what a traitor deserves. Radio said she was Texan, right? I’m surprised she just got arrested, instead of getting the axe. On the other hand, state law vs. federal law. Eh, whatever.” She shrugged.

“Tensions in Korea with the Russians, a Texan scientist turned spy...We live in a strange world. Almost miss just having to fight Hitler and Tojo. Oh, and have you heard what she said in her HUAC hearing? Dr. Oppenheimer made a statement about that. It was beautifully put.”

**Bismuth:**

“Strange world indeed. It makes you wonder if any other spies are going to be popping up as it goes on. Those Russians sure are tricky, aren’t they?” She laughed heartily, before taking a drink from her soda. “Texan, yeah, I think Austin or Houston. Somewhere around there. I’d like to see how she even tried to defend herself, must’ve been entertaining at least. She had to be scared out of her wits! With good reason, obviously. Suppose it’s better than whatever the hell they’d to do a failed spy in Russia.” She shrugged.

“I’m paying this time, by the way, just setting things straight. We both know I acted… unprofessionally last time, and I want to assure you that I’ve moved on.” Bismuth offered a smile, raising her glass briefly in Jasper’s direction.

**Jasper:**

Jasper nodded, raising her glass of whiskey as well, clinking it with Bismuth’s. “Thanks for the apology, as out of date as it is.” The joke carried a bit of a barb. “Hell if I know the difference between Houston and Austin. If I’ve gone there, it’s been decades. Christ. Look, you might have sympathy for some failed Russian spy, but I honestly don’t care. Let the Russians do what they want to her. She deserves it. 

“They did cover her defense as part of the news, and it was insane. A lunatic was up there, yelling about a fascist America, about her true love, about endless nuclear war, and when she was lucid, she agreed that she’d messed things up, big-time, contributing to last year’s commie bomb test. Now, if the commies are smart and build up, there could be enough bombs to end the world, partially thanks to a dumbass scientist from Texas. Aren’t Texans supposed to be patriotic?”

**Bismuth:**

She decided to ignore the extra half-joke of a comment. “That Russian must have been quite the looker to make a girl do all of that for her, that’s for sure. I seriously doubt someone like that is all right in the head anyways. It’s too bad she had to act on all of that nonsense that’s probably bouncing around in there.”

She finished up the burger, wiping the extra sauce away from her mouth with a napkin and setting on the plate in front of her. This wasn’t the same table as 1945, of course, but seeing the place again gave her a strange feeling. This was where she had found out that the second bomb was going to be dropped, five years ago. Like a sickening nostalgia that she made sure to push to the back of her thoughts.

 

**1947 - Lubbock, Texas, 11:45 PM**

**Peridot:**

Lubbock felt more or less like a typical Texan city. Large, flat roads on a grid lined mostly with one-story buildings, the ones that weren’t towering at maybe five stories, maximum. They drove by “Lester’s Credit Jewelers” at an extremely slow pace. “I’ve never been to Russia. I know that it’s probably illegal or dangerous to ask about military secrets or whatever, but can I at least ask what Russia looks like?” She asked.

She, having lost only part of her lower leg and thus retaining most control of it, was able to drive. This was also due to Peridot having an American license to do so, which put Lapis in the passenger seat of their Hudson 6, a sleek blue car that was clearly weathered and looked a bit like a goblin shark. “Speaking of which...Crap. I never asked what SSR you actually came from. I always just assumed Russia. Or is the correct answer to that ‘Ohio’?”

**Lapis:**

Over a day’s worth of driving hadn’t provided much in the way of sightseeing, besides the occasional tumbleweed blowing across the dusty road of panhandle West Texas. Somehow, a state the size of France managed to be flatter than any place she’d ever seen before. Lapis had her legs crossed in the ample leg room of the Hudson.

So far, everything had been successful. The marriage license had been legitimately obtained with not much more than a glance from the county clerk at the new couple. Now, sights were set on New Mexico, for their romantic honeymoon and eventual working place of Peridot. During the hours and hours of driving across the admittedly boring countryside, Lapis couldn’t help but daydream about Georgia, the polar opposite of Texas. So when the question was asked, she didn’t see any harm in actually answering.

“Well, before Cincinatti, I grew up in Georgia. You know, the state, of course,” she added with a wry grin. “It was much greener than out here, much more mountainous, and the Black Sea was- I mean, er, the… Mississippi River? Fuck it. It was gorgeous. This place is nothing compared.”

**Peridot:**

“Are you sure you don’t mean the Atlantic Ocean? I mean, the Mississippi river is sort of bordering Mississippi, which is west of Alabama. Although I do find it funny that apparently I’ve married a Southern belle. The things you learn after marriage.” She snorted.

“I mean, sure, but I never really got why people liked green and mountains anyway. This is all kind of relaxing to me in a way. It feels homey. Like, it’ll always be the desert, it’ll always be flat and there’s nothing that’ll kill you that isn’t a scorpion or a snake, and those are pretty rare.

“I might be biased, though, although you haven’t seen the Colorado River, have you? It was close to Austin and it was beautiful. Well, it is beautiful. Tenses are confus- Whatever.” She sighed. “I will admit though that sometimes you forget where you’re actually driving in the desert.” 

**Lapis:**

“Well, I say,” she attempted to mimic a stereotypical Southern accent, knowing that she’d probably pay somewhere down the line with some gross Soviet approximation. She returned to her normal voice- well, her normal fabricated American accent. “I guess if you grow up here it could be homey, but it’s just a bunch of flat land to me. There aren’t any focal points except for cows and the occasional building.”

She gazed out the window, watching the intersections of Lubbock lazily pass by. “Even the cities are square. There’s no fun in that, at least for me. Maybe some more lakes or something would do this place some good.”

**Peridot:**

“Agreed on that. I’m an Austinite. The city was surrounded by lakes, and you could drive to the Colorado River easily. Imagine this, but with more human life and water and crap. Also, how else would you build a city if you had a perfectly flat canvas? It’s the most rational way to build anything without environmental limitations, really.” She said this as though she was an architect and city planning expert. She wasn’t.

“...I wanted to put this off. Honestly. You don’t say no to the NKVD, though, or to Comrade Stalin, so here I am, but still. I really, really, really didn’t want to go back to work again to see everyone I knew. I didn’t want to have to talk to Pearl, who let this happen, who made this happen, Amethyst, who didn’t give a shit, Bismuth and Jasper, who fueled the fire...But no. The NKVD wanted more from Los Alamos. More, more more!” 

She grit her teeth and the car swerved slightly, but she corrected course. “Well, I guess I’m stuck. Better grin and bear it, I guess. Well. All for a greater good. Save the United States. Get nothing for it, deal with them again...I feel like, in another life, I could have been so much happier.”

**Lapis:**

Lapis shrugged. “I think we’d make the exact same mistakes in another life. No reason not to, right? Might as well be a big loop of inevitability. I’m just trying to focus on not fucking it up further.” She let her fingers tap along the dashboard absentmindedly.

If she was going to be the loving housewife, she might have to cut back on the profanity, she thought to herself. It was kind of a crutch, but most likely wouldn’t fly as the stereotypical “Welcome home, Honey! I have dinner ready!” trope. Whatever, nobody else had to hear it, at least right now.

**Peridot:**

Peridot yawned and stopped the car at a motel outside of Lubbock to sleep. This was part of the plan, the motel was paid in advance, and everything was normal. This was due largely to the fact that the Soviet secret police and intelligence service could control most of the conscious human experience, but the fundamental instinct to sleep when tired was something beyond even their reach. 

Peridot found a neat little room and fell onto the bed, passing out into a small coma. Unlike the former night bomber, Peridot had a very rigid sleep schedule, and so as midnight approached, she hit the bed, fully clothed, and fell quickly to sleep.

She woke up in her old apartment. Or, a facsimile of it. A messy, cramped little place full of magazines and science fiction periodicals, the latter scattered across the floor. Her room was hazy in her view, but she could see what she looked at, and some of the things around that. She woke up in her bed to the sound of drums and marching, and hanging from the low Austinite buildings were long American flags, with GIs marching down the street in olive uniforms. Toy soldiers.

As it happened, she thought that this was merely some memorial, or patriotic event. She always thought this. She then watched the parade continue, and out of her view, masked partially by the footsteps, she heard the sound of gunshots fill the air. It was methodical. Like clockwork, or music. Every few seconds, a fusillade out of view. 

Then, for some reason, she heard a man rant into a microphone. He was a ghost. He could have been behind her, in front of her, two blocks down. He was everywhere. He filled the world. He spoke of minor things. War rationing, executions, various tidbits about the draft, the sports results, it was usually the sports results. Occasionally racehorses. He was just everywhere. What always was heard was the same line from the man, his voice radio-host slick. “Hello, Dr. Marshall, it’s an honor to see you.” She sometimes saw his face, in flashes into her mind, a smiling white man in a tan suit with perfect hair.

Sometimes this dream varied in one way or another, but the fears were the same. Anyway, as always, she woke up for real. “Hello, Dr. Marshall, it’s an honor to see you.” The words were seared into her brain. Branded. She’d probably be a nobody, but for some reason her brain, stuffed into that little skull resting in that small head on that mattress, always thought that she’d be some kind of American angel if she’d never taken the offer. Some kind of Gabriel to Oppenheimer’s Yahweh. Or were they all Azrael? She was no theologist. She looked at the dingy motel room and thanked God that she wasn’t a respected scientist.  

**Lapis:**

Being newlyweds, they shared the room, and luckily when Peridot passed out on the bed it was at least to the side so there was enough space for two. There was no strange feeling in sharing a bed for Lapis, it was for a purpose and she’d go far enough to call Peridot a friend, when not her wife. She gave herself ample time to change into a nightgown, as sleep did not come as easily to her. It never really did, not anymore.

She finally slipped into the other side, turning her back to Peridot as she tried to sleep. The burn scar on her back was visible, but neither of them had brought it up so far and she didn’t plan on initiating that in the future. Eventually, sleep came.

They were back in the car. It was moving a lot quicker than before, and looking out the window to her right Lapis could see a flowing form that in that classic dream way managed to represent Georgia in her mind. Some force pulled her to look back forward, and it she could see that they were heading for a cliff face. It was clear that the car was accelerating towards it much too fast to stop in time, and she yelped, gripping the seat as her head whipped to see who was driving this thing.

It was herself, at least the body was, but where there should have been a face lied a smear, as if a surrealist painter had taken watercolor over it. Then they were flying off the cliff, in this together. The car morphed into an aircraft, and Lapis was being shot down, sounds of Luftwaffe fighters in the air all around her. The plane had no controls, and it was spiraling out of control, the ground approaching fast before-

She jerked awake, sweating and hyperventilating as she sat up quickly. It took a few moments to realize that she had dug her hand into the side of the bed, fabric torn from her panicked grip. Of course, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real, Lapis. Calm down. Don’t do this in front of the scientist.

 

**Dec 29th, 1949 - Los Alamos, New Mexico**

**Peridot:**

Checkmate. It wasn’t as dramatic as some great revelation, of her being intercepted by CIA spooks or something, of her secret plans, of which there were none, being revealed. No, it came with two words. ‘Feynman overheard’. She thought it would be safe. Really. The two of them alone in Peridot’s private house, the tiny little box dressed up like an American home, with only a few somewhat cramped rooms. The walls were white, the very nice burgundy couch was in the corner, and Lapis and Peridot sat on either end. “Apparently she wanted to see if we were actually having sex. She wondered if I was too repressed and bookish for it.”

Oh, how that had gone wrong. Instead of overhearing silence, chatter about the day, or grunts and moaning, Amethyst had heard through the door in another room Peridot’s ranting to Lapis, and Lapis’ response. The topic was about the increasingly demanding needs of the NKVD, of Peridot’s worry that she might not be able to acquire what they wanted, and of Lapis’ fear that she might well be taken home and shot.

Amethyst had burst through the door, asked what the hell was going on, and Peridot tried to lie, tried to say that no, they had nothing to do with any spy plot, but the paranoia on site was high and Amethyst had a good head on her shoulders. So now Peridot and Lapis sat there on the bed in night clothes, knowing they only had a few days left. “God dammit!”

**Lapis:**

The first thoughts that flew through Lapis’ mind was how difficult it would be to murder Feynman and hide the body. The killing would be the easy part, incidentally, the difficult part would be explaining what happened to Los Alamos’ prized theoretical physicist. It just wasn’t feasible. Instead, her eyes just widened, body quivering as she stared at Amethyst.

In the back of her mind, among the fragments of thoughts that tortured her mind in this fraction of a second was a regret that they hadn’t been given some sort of suicide pill for a situation like this. If it got out, of course, Lapis would not be ending up in the happiest scenario. And it was almost certain to get out now. The next fragment of a thought was only one word. A name. Peridot.

She grabbed the scientist’s arm, in a protective fashion, as if she was afraid that Feynman might attack them right there in then. Her hands were still shaking, making it tougher to get a grip. Eye contact never left the physicist. “Don’t do this, Amy…” It was all she could think to say.

**Amethyst:**

Let’s put it this way. You’re working in a top secret government laboratory in the middle of New Mexico. Rumors are saying that the Soviets know, and they have people on the inside. It could be anyone, right? There’s not many people you feel like you can really trust, and so you only confide with a very small circle of close friends.

Peridot was one of those select few, or so Amethyst thought. So when she decided that she would have some fun with herself that day and perhaps get rewarded with embarrassing the hell out of her friend and maybe catch a look at her cute wife, it causes a certain twisting in your stomach that you can never really forget when instead, you hear their worries of being discovered.

“Don’t do this? What in the hell have I done?!” She felt out of breath, almost, but there was plenty of air in her lungs. “I can’t fucking believe this. Out of all people… what the fuck, Peridot?” She wasn’t exactly in the right emotional state to word anything better or cleaner than that. 

**Peridot:**

“I want America to survive as what we know it as! Why can’t you see this? America, alone with the bomb and this fanaticism...Germany started with a liberal republic. It just took one goddamn painter with a vision, and now we have a country hopped up on this patriotism bullshit and armed with the bomb. There has to be a counterbalance! Otherwise all the nightmares I’ve had about the American jackboot...They’ll stop being nightmares. I know they will. I can’t stop seeing it. Do you think I want to do this? Russia is evil. Russian government is evil. Russian economics are bullshit. Somebody needs to keep the US in check before we start dropping these things at any excuse. You tell yourself that we dropped my bomb because we had to, because they wouldn’t surrender. Take it from the expert. We dropped it because we had a second bomb lying around. Welcome to the new America, Amethyst. I’m doing what I can to stop it. It’s the least bad option of a few very bad ones.”

**Amethyst:**

“God damn, Peridot… do you ever shut up and just think about what you’re saying? I mean, seriously! This is insanity! And let me guess, this ‘wife’ of yours,” she turned to Lapis with a glare, throwing an arm in her direction, “Isn’t an American either. What are you? Are you both from other there? Or which one of you is the one poisoning the other with all these bullshit ideas…”

She continued to mutter obscenities under her breath as her gaze switched back and forth between the other two jerkily. She knew something had to done, but what? These people were her friends up until a few moments ago, especially Peridot… was that fabricated, too? God, this was going to be a shitty day.

**Lapis:**

Lapis stayed quiet, knowing that her wife (for they had truly began to accept that as not just part of the plan anymore) would be able to do the talking for both of them. She used the energy not expended on moving her mouth to keep from lurching forwards, throwing up, and attempting to manage the shaking. It wasn’t working well. 

As Amethyst turned the speech towards her, she instinctively responded with an Iberian slap, before resorting to what was more commonly used over here, giving the finger with one shaking hand. She might end up dead because of all of this business, but she wasn’t going to sit back and be polite about it.

**Peridot:**

“Before you ask, I’m an American born in Austin, Texas, I want to save America, not destroy it, she’s a Georgian who I consider to have immigrated to America, if not perfectly legally, and I was your friend until when the bombs fell. Then I saw you distance yourself from the consequences of what you’d made. I get what happened to Arline, but still.

“Then I started pretending. I really couldn’t tolerate someone who was willing to shrug off at least one hundred thousand people incinerated or irradiated as some necessary cost of war. I know what the Nazis did. I know what the Japanese did. Amethyst, please, just...There are more like me. If you talk, it won’t stop the Russians. If we do anything but do as they say, we’ll...be sorry. You have nothing to gain but your own prestige selling out a friend for the crime of empathy. You’re a better person than that!” She said, desperately.

**Amethyst:**

Any miniscule particle of doubt was erased when Peridot brought her deceased wife into the mix. “Don’t you bring Arline into this… you fraud! You really don’t get it, do you? This sure as hell isn’t going to save America.” Her voice grew close to cracking as she spoke, tears filling Amethyst’s eyes. That was one person off the list that she could trust. 

“If you can’t understand why I act why I do, and I obviously can’t understand your bullshit reasoning, there’s not much left of you I can call a friend. I’m not going to feel bad about this.” That may or may not have been true, but it was said either way, and with that Amethyst spun on her foot and dashed out of the apartment.

**Lapis:**

Her frozen stature on the couch ended with the exit of Amethyst, and she rushed to the door after her, but the oddly speedy physicist had the head start and it would be foolish to try and chase her. She flipped back to Peridot, eyes wide and bordering on crazed, at least for Lapis’ usual deadpan stare. She attempted to keep her voice calm yet firm, with a little wavering in tone that was inevitable.

“Get clothes on now. We have to leave. We can’t take any chances.” She leaned forward, planting a kiss on Peridot’s forehead, before turning to rush to the bedroom to pack the essentials. Time wasn’t something that could be wasted right now.

**Peridot:**

“Leave where? This secure military complex, full of soldiers, where we would make our cunning escape straight through the burning desert with nothing in it, to reach Albuquerque, taking an hour, and then we would, I assume, fly to the Soviet Union, where we’re failed spies? You know what they do to failed spies. We’re fucked. So let’s just sit down and stay calm. Checkmate, Lapis!”

Her speech was speeding up and her gesticulations were manic. “We can’t escape this one! We can’t go anywhere that the CIA, or worse, the NKVD won’t find us! They have the whole world covered, and we’d be prime targets. Our best bet is to hope that you’re tried on American soil and so just potentially imprisoned. We might get executed. We might not. It’s a coin flip. That’s our best case, so... wanna grab a drink?” She laughed, as hollowly as possible.

**Lapis:**

She knew everything Peridot was saying was true, but in her mind she tried to piece together some graceful exit. There had to be one, but there so clearly wasn’t. She realized that she hadn’t taken a breath in the last half a minute or so, and took one, eyes staring off into space now. They were fucked.

She stayed frozen in place for what felt like forever, before taking a seat on the edge of the couch, not letting her back slouch. It was as if she only had partial awareness of what was happening around her, eyes not being used at all. “...Checkmate.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Amethyst:**

Amy “Amethyst” Feynman hated night flight. She hated the stewardesses, for some reason, she hated the passengers in the cramped aluminum tubes, she hated the way the plane flew. She just developed this all-encompassing hatred. It was funny, how it kind of just popped up, out of nowhere, like a scorpion she never knew was under her bed.

It was almost like this was a substitute for her shock and horror at the revelation that one of the few friends she’d had was actually working to arm a totalitarian, communist state which used similar tactics in governing and politics to the Nazis, the people they all agreed were vile. Oh, and, of course, to arm them with the worst weapons that could be imagined.

She wondered how little she knew of Peridot. How false her story as to why she did it was. It seemed true, but only because nobody would lie and say that they believed something so insane. She chose to blame it on Lapis. She liked Lapis, before, she thought she was swell, a real doll, but, well...That was before. Now she knew she was a Ruskie, and one who had, she concluded, irreversibly corrupted Peridot into insanity.

What kind of person betrays someone getting over her dead wife, lies to them for, what, over four years, and then goes to help people no better than Nazis, who want to destroy everything that moron Peridot claimed to believe in? What kind of person?

Olivia Peridot Marshall, apparently. Amethyst knew that she was avoiding the consequences of the bombs. It was never her job to decide how they were used, and if she hadn’t helped make them, Hitler would have had them, or, well, something like that. At the very least, Amethyst knew that that was a tough decision she had to make.

And she didn’t like to talk about it.

So let’s just say that when she finally stood there in a terminal of the relatively new LaGuardia Airport, in New York, she had a lot to say to the woman who greeted her. “Pearl. I called you for a reason, I came here to say it in person.” She tried to hold herself together. “They lied.”

**Pearl:**

Needless to say, Pearl wasn't exactly in the best mindset to continue work at Los Alamos after the war. Too many constant reminders of what her and quite a few others would consider one of the greatest mistakes of all time. So she returned to work at Caltech, at least for a time, but that didn't sit just right either. Two years later, she made the move back east to New Jersey to begin work as a director of one of the many programs at Princeton. Apparently, it was helpful to move as far away from New Mexico as possible, for her own sake.

Despite these regrets and attempts to distance herself, her friendship remained with Amethyst, through phone calls and rare visits. So when she called with an urgent tone in her voice and a desire to meet Pearl as soon as possible, she was glad to arrange the meeting, or as glad as one can get when butterflies begin to fill your stomach with scary possibilities and bad memories.

“Who lied?” There was quite a bit of emotion hidden behind those two words, mixtures and faint tastes of confusion, accusation, and fear, among others. Whoever it was, certainly wasn't going to help lift anybody’s spirits. A thought drifted across Pearl's mind, which told her in a small voice that Los Alamos was going to follow her for the rest of her life, one way or another. 

**Amethyst:**

“Peridot and Lapis. Lapis is a Russian spy sent to steal information on our bombs, Peridot is a fellow traveller. I know she’s not a communist because part of her ‘I’m not a commie’ rant was insane enough to basically show that the entire thing was true, since nobody would say things like that and hope to convince anyone of anything with lies. So our entire friendship the last four years is probably crap. I blame the Ruskie for it, but in the end she’s nuts too.”

Amethyst sighed angrily about this. “She had the fuckin’ balls to bring up Arline while she tried to defend this shit to me. She never really knew Arline. So she had been fucking me over straight for four years, and now the NKVD’s putting pressure on those two to get more, and they’re afraid they can’t handle it. They were talking about it, I was there to overhear, thought they might actually make love for once, but, of course, there was no way Peridot gets a girl like that without it being bullshit. God, it was all bullshit! Every goddamn conversation. Well, I know I’m not supposed to wish death on anyone, but I’m hoping that they’re shot.” She glared at a patch of ground vaguely meant to represent the couple.

**Pearl:**

She felt her knees wobble at Amethyst’s words and held onto a nearby railing for support. Of course, she knew that Peridot had had less than positive feelings about the project, but honestly she hadn't pegged her as the sort of person to get involved with the Russians directly. She seemed too… insignificant, logistically speaking, too small physically and in position as well. Not someone who would be doing much more with her life than talk and emotional support at best.

Pearl had never known Lapis, not well at least, having left the laboratory before her arrival and certainly not being the keenest on making return trips to the place. It was the name Peridot that packed the most punch. That one scientist, and it was only a few conversations… but possibly the most important ones she had had during those months.

Then her words came flooding back to Pearl, the ones she saw as just empty drivel, and she almost collapsed against the railing. “I’m a woman who has nothing to lose at this point,” she had said. “I’ll fix things.” Apparently, she had tried. “Dear Lord,” was all Pearl was able to muster saying, no faith involved in the phrase.

**Amethyst:**

Amethyst saw Pearl’s knees wobble and then her body freeze up, Amethyst knowing from experience with Pearl that her friend was lost in thought at the moment. If Amethyst could make any kind of guess, maybe it was at horror. Or possibly regret. She knew that Peridot and Pearl were a bit close at times. Once Amethyst entertained the thought of some workplace interactions of the broom closet kind between the two. 

She bitterly thought that it would be a better couple than the delusional idiot and the communist spy. Well, it looked like the traitors would get what they deserved anyway. “Look...P. Are...are you okay?” She asked, putting a hand up on Pearl’s shoulder. “We know now. They’ll do something.”

At least Amethyst had that. Justice would be done, she knew. Some small compensation for the years of betrayal and manipulation she’d undergone, for the casual invoking of the most intelligent and compassionate woman she’d ever known just to make a point that Peridot’s betrayal was somehow okay...Yeah, it didn’t mean much.

“Our country’ll set things right. Fix all of this.” Well, fix what could be fixed in this broken goddamn mess.

'Good fucking luck', she thought.

**Pearl:**

‘Okay’ certainly wasn't the term that Pearl would use to describe her current mental state. She used most of her strength to keep herself in a vaguely upright position, and attempted a wavering, weak excuse for a smile in Amethyst’s direction. It wasn't very convincing. “You-You’re right.”

She knew quite clearly that Amethyst wasn't right, and that ‘our country setting things right’ never went well. Fake, hollow words of comfort were easier to form, though. Where Amethyst saw some sliver of justice on the horizon, Pearl only saw more regret that she hadn't seen the clues that had been so obvious in hindsight. Damn you, Los Alamos. “Thank you for coming out to let me know,” she managed. “I… appreciate it.”

**Amethyst:**

“...Are you sure you’re OK? I know you, Pearl. When you’re OK, it’s usually pretty obvious, because you’re either kind of...I dunno, giddy, or you’re professional and order-y or whatever. You know, most of the time. This really isn’t you.” 

Honestly, she could tell by the obvious effort it took for Pearl to keep herself stable that Pearl was not alright. “It’s...They’re going to fix this. Things are going to go back to normal, we won’t have to deal with...friends who aren’t on the level. Or, people who we thought were friends.”

**Pearl:**

Of course, Pearl could never bring up the conversations she had held with Peridot over the weeks after the first test with Amethyst, especially not now. The fact that she had known that Peridot was vehemently against the bomb, and how she was going to “fix things,”... the clues were all there. And she had missed them, too wrapped up in her own worries. So no, she was not okay, but she couldn’t explain the real reason why without compromising herself. As close of friends as they were, she just couldn’t.

“Of course, it’s just...well, shocking, you know. She had never come across as anything like that to me, and I know you two were very close, that’s such a shame really.” It was true, she did sympathize with Amethyst’s loss of a friend in such a heartbreaking way. Empathize, even. She had known Peridot too. The only scientist in Los Alamos she even trusted to speak her true feelings with… she mused to herself if she had told the Russians that as well. The famed Oppenheimer, doubtful about her own master creation. “How much did they leak, do you know? To… well, the Soviets?”

**Amethyst:**

“Do you think they went through it all for me? All I got was that they were doing it, that the Russians wanted more, and that they weren’t able to provide any more. That and everything I thought I knew about them being bullshit. Also...I'm gonna level with you, Pearl. I kinda know you’re lying. I’m done with people lying to me, okay?

“It’s not just that it’s shocking, it’s not just that it’s a shame. I know you, you would not be frozen and barely holding it together if it was just a shame. Just don’t fucking lie to me, Pearl. I am done with my friends lying to me.” Her voice had some steel to it.

**Pearl:**

Pearl’s eyes widened, and she took a slight step back, almost instinctively. She knew that she wasn’t exactly the best at concealing feelings but she definitely wasn’t expecting such a hostile reaction from her friend. “Amethyst, I…” she trailed off, unsure of how to continue.

Her eyes turned downwards, away from Amethyst. It certainly didn’t feel good to hide her feelings, but the idea of sharing them didn’t bode well either, or so she thought. “She just… Peridot, I mean, she said some things that in hindsight I should have maybe spoken up about.” She was close to mumbling, not trying especially hard to actually be heard. Despite the height advantage, Pearl rarely took the dominant position in times like this. If it dealt with emotions, at least. Science was a different story, of course.

**Amethyst:**

At that, Amethyst nearly wanted to buy a drink just to crush it in her hand. Pearl could have...Oh, dear god. “What the fuck?” She shouted at the top of her very large lungs, causing the people around them to look. She tried to make herself quiet down, almost exaggerating the resulting whisper.

“What the fuck? You could have spoken up and....Oh my god. What the hell did she say, Pearl? What did you keep quiet about? Are you a spy too? Please don’t tell me you’re working with them. I swear to god, I’ll tell someone else! I have Garnet’s number, she knows me! You know, the one incorruptible person at Los Alamos, apparently?”

**Pearl:**

“I did not work with them!” She retaliated, breaking the eye contact she held with the floor to glare at Amethyst, nodding in a fashion as to say “Quiet down, you’re making a scene.” She took a moment to collect herself before continuing, albeit nervously. “She half mentioned her feelings about the bomb to me, it was nothing really at first, but then she added something at the end. Something about fixing things. In the context, I thought she was referring to going political or speaking out or something along those lines, but she seemed too… I don’t know! Weak, or something! Unlikely to get involved in espionage, which was only rumors at the time anyways.”

She kept her voice as composed as possible, or, at least softer than Amethyst’s at best. “I cannot believe you’d accuse me of something like that. I understand that this is stressful, but under no circumstances would I ever stoop that low. No matter how I feel about that damn project.”

**Amethyst:**

“You’re lucky I want to trust you, but okay, I see why you’d make that mistake. Even if I hate that you did so much. How political would she...Amethyst, calm down...Fine. Yeah, we all thought she was weak and not really that important. Hell, you should have seen her try to keep her house in order. It was a complete mess. Lapis should have...Fuck. It was a mess.”

She didn’t want to think about Lapis, honestly. “You know, the funny thing was that I actually thought Lapis was cute. She didn’t have an accent or anything, either, and she was quiet. Kind of a cold bitch, thinking about it, but things were more innocent then.”

**Pearl:**

“Look, the important part of all of this is that now we know and they’ll be rightfully prosecuted. Even if it was an… unorthodox method of finding out. Think you’ll have to testify about that?” An actual smile pulled at appearing on her face, for a few moments at least. If she couldn’t crack a joke with Amethyst, who could she with? She didn’t exactly consider herself much of a comedian in usual situations, but humor was necessary sometimes, to push away more sinister thoughts.

“I never knew her wife. From what I’ve heard, they didn’t sound like the most conventional couple, at least in terms of personalities. It doesn’t surprise me that Peridot’s thinking might have been somewhat manipulated by an outside source, however.” She sighed, eyes not staying fixed in one place for very long at a time.

**Amethyst:**

“Well, unless the NKVD pressed her into it, which I guess was possible, it kind of makes more sense to assume that she turned to them. I want to believe that the Russians are entirely to blame for all of this fuckin’ shit, but you know what? My guess is that it was probably just some weird guilt complex. We all had to do something about the fact that we made it. I think that you and I made the best choices we could. It’s not that hard to imagine Peri just, you know, seein’ Hitler or something and getting worked up. 

“Dammit, now I kinda feel sorry for her and her descent into total nuttery. Well, she still fucked me over, fucked us all over, fucked America over, fucked you over...She’s fucked.” She ended the rambling sentence with the tone of a condemnation of execution.

**Pearl:**

Pearl recalled a phrase one physicist had told her not long after the Trinity test, giving her a hearty pat on the back. “Now we are all sons of bitches!” he had proudly exclaimed. This seemed rather prevalent, especially with all of this. “You’d think that if they had been spying on the project after all that time, Peridot, or her wife even, would be a little more careful to not be discovered. All of that to be overheard accidentally. I wonder if she was even… all there, mentally. Had she been acting differently at all before then?”

The initial shock having worn off left behind a dull feeling of regret in the pit of her stomach that could be covered up by her more rational side, at least externally. So the Soviets knew even more than Pearl assumed the uppers expected, yet another group of spies to be locked away or fried. Her own friend, too, if she could call Peridot that. Lovely way to finish off the year.

**Amethyst:**

“Was she all there? Are you kidding me? No. She wasn’t ‘all there’. She was never ‘all there’. Do you know what she tried to tell me, Pearl? That she was doing all of this to fight fascism, two years after the bombs fell. She was afraid of a fascist America, after the death of fascism. She had these dreams, or something, and...It was delusions, jumpy thinking, none of it made any sense...She needed to be either medicated or checked into a hospital somewhere. She wasn’t thinking clearly, and she fucked us all over for it.

“Hell, I bet that Lapis probably encouraged that shit. Made her think that she was right, that her paranoia and seeing links in the chain that weren’t fucking there was right, that she saw what others didn’t. Peridot thought she was a hero. She was just a fuckin’ basket case, Pearl. I wish we’d recognized it. Weird how well they can hide it.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl let another sigh escape her lips, not one directed at Amethyst but at the situation in general. Things used to be so cut and dry- well, they used to feel that way, at least. Lately, really ever since the bomb dropped for the first time, everything felt as unpredictable and messy as the subatomic particles they had been working with.

“They’ll get what they deserve, I suppose. The long arm of the law will happily toss them in a prison, or strap them to the… you know.” She grimaced inwardly. It wasn’t exactly a nice thought, even though she knew Amethyst would be happy to see at least the Russian pay for this whole thing. Pearl motioned in the direction of the exit. “Let’s get out of this airport. I think we both need a drink.”

**Amethyst:**

“The electric chair, Pearl.” She said, with a hint of actual sadness in her tone. They were friends who had used everyone, betrayed everyone, and gone insane, but they were still, at least in some way, a socially-awkward engineer and her attractive Georgian wife. She wondered about that. Was that some fuckin’ joke? That the goddamn southern belle was from the other Georgia? She never much talked about her home, so Peridot had to relay that information to Amethyst. What an amazing joke. Ha, ha. 

“They’re going to die. It’ll...It’ll all be for a good reason. They deserve it.” Still, the idea of their deaths was palpable. Any life was a good life. If she’d learned anything from working on the bomb that saved the world with two blasts, she’d learned that. She wasn’t a monster. She was just Amethyst, and she wasn’t going to take joy in the electrocution of a crazy person and her wife. Even with extenuating circumstances.

**Pearl:**

“Right. You’re right.” Pearl repeated the word, mainly to reassure herself unsuccessfully. Whether paranoid or insane, she knew Peridot thought she was doing it to fix America, the country that was going to fry her like a fish. A thought intruded that Pearl quickly pushed away, but not without hearing it first- this was just two more deaths that the bomb and by extrapolation, her, were responsible for. She’d tried to repress this thought process for a while, but it reared its ugly head every once in awhile.

“Come on, Amethyst.” Pearl gestured with her hand, beginning to turn. “Let’s go get our minds off of things.” However the hell they were going to to do that.

**April, 1954 - Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, District of Columbia**

“Please explain in detail your interest and roles in politics before your time at Los Alamos, specifically those tied to communism.”

“Politics? Well, er, let’s see… I certainly didn’t have any interest in politics at all until at least the mid 30s. It took me months to even realize the stock market had crashed!” She laughed a bit awkwardly. It was forced. “...Anyways, after that, honestly I had always fallen into what you’d call the left wing, but never communism. That was just preposterous. I was never a member of any political organization or affiliated with anything of the sort.”

“What about at Los Alamos? Specifically, your interactions after the Trinity test, and with Doctor Olivia Peridot Marshall, who as you know was tried and convicted for her ties to Soviet espionage.”

“I can’t say I was thrilled after the success of our creation, but I certainly would never have even conceived working with the Soviets as a resolution. My only experience with Doctor Marshall was through short conversations, and I was given no knowledge of her dealings with the Soviets. As I said, I was not affiliated with anything of the sort.”

“What were these conversations about?”

“She was concerned about the development of the nuclear bomb, and expressed this to me, but within the context it didn’t seem as if she was going to do anything about it but worry. She wasn’t the most… intimidatingly looking, to the project. Kind of short and squeaky, if I may. Not one you’d expect to… well, act on something like that.”

“You’re saying that you had knowledge of her dissent within the laboratory?”

“I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds a lot worse than it actually was at the time…”

“Doctor Oppenheimer, she leaked valuable top secret information about the bomb to Soviet intelligence.”

“Yes, yes, but this was years after our very brief meetings. I knew she didn’t agree, but I knew nothing more than that. Certainly nothing like what she ended up doing.”

“Did you report these incidents?”

“Report these incidents? I was the director of the damn place! Don’t look at me like that, no, I didn’t tell Groves… it seemed insignificant. On the larger scale, it most likely did nothing. I...”

“That’s enough on the subject for now, Doctor Oppenheimer. Could you please elaborate on your sentiments towards the creation and usage of the atomic bomb which Los Alamos, under your direction, succeeding in creating?”

“...I suppose we’ll come back to my defense later,” she replied, icily. “Sentiments? Well, I can’t say I was in love with the idea, at least not after the fact. Believe me, I know the details around it, and the necessity of ending the war, yet… you can’t help but feel responsible for something bigger. Nonetheless, it never affected my day to day duties and work on the facility, and I certainly never went farther than voicing concerns.”

“Could these so called ‘concerns’ have affected Doctor Marshall’s line of thinking? Planted a seed, even?”

“Of course not! I mean, she was the one that even brought up the subject, this must have been more long term than that. Her beliefs, I mean. I certainly had no part in inhibiting those in her.”

“Merely encouraged them, I see.”

“Sir!”

“That’s all for now. I’ve heard enough.”

  
  


**November, 1955 - Huntsville State Penitentiary**

**Peridot:**

They put her in Huntsville. A Texan prison. A prison in her home state a few hours from her house. She couldn’t believe it at first, honestly. At the moment, she sat there in a simple metal chair with her hands on a small, Spartan table. The room had two guards in it, given Peridot’s nonviolent criminal history and her tiny stature, and Peridot was more than aware of exactly what the guards could and could not do to you. The short way of describing it was that often she wished she’d just swallowed her moral concerns and never taken the offer to work with the Russians. 

The walls were a clay red, the guards were both men, and were armed, this being Texas, and the other woman at the table was none other than her former boss. If she thought there was a difference in power beforehand, with her being a mere cog in the Manhattan Project machine, well, that was nothing. She was now talking to a respected scientist with a slightly tarnished reputation, and she herself was a traitor and a prisoner. At least she wasn’t a visitor to the execution chamber housed in this very prison. 

“Hi, Pearl. I’m surprised you asked to visit, but frankly, any kind of human contact that isn’t with someone I don’t see every day and/or fear for my life and being when I’m around is nice. A new face, I guess. How have you been? I haven’t heard much. Time just slips away here.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl was honestly surprised with herself that she had even worked up the will to go visit the scientist turned traitor to America. She was averse to the meeting for several reasons, among them fear of what she would see and hear, and the overall will to never think about the situation again

Needless to say, as these things go for anyone who wasn’t a hard line supporter of the bomb, her security clearance was not renewed after the hearing at the Atomic Energy Commission, and luckily nothing worse was planned. She was used to the communist accusations, but the fact that they finally did something to back up the words stung. Still, better than being locked up in a state prison. 

She had eventually decided that all loose ends needed to be tied up before truly letting those experiences slips away, even this one. After figuring out all the strangely specific rules the prison had about visiting, and filling out quite a bit of paperwork, she found herself seated there, right across the table from the admittedly unassuming woman who had leaked as much information to the Russians as she could get her hands on, with the help of a certain deceased someone. She had to admit, she wasn’t expecting her to be so polite. “Peridot. Hello. I, er, well, it’s nice to see you, I think.” What was she supposed to say? Sorry about prison? I hate you for causing an arms race? “I’ve been… okay, relatively. Is it too redundant to ask you the same?” As if she couldn’t have made it any awkwarder.

**Peridot:**

“It could be better, honestly. I’m not exactly popular here for my actions, and it seems like every second of the day I get something out of it.” Occasionally that something was outright assault, usually it was insults. She had a few friends, and criminals weren’t the most patriotic people, but there were more than a few caught up in the Red Scare, and so her crime was somewhat unique among the varying levels of prisoners she was now on equal terms with.

“It’s tiring, honestly. You do the same thing every day, and it just grinds at you. I’m tired, Pearl. I’m really, really, really tired. Twice I’ve seen people taken to the execution chamber, thanked God that I wasn’t in their place. That’s kind of nice though, in a sick way. It’s 1955, right? I couldn’t tell you what’s happened for the last five years, and there are people who have been in here since...1928, I think. Probably for longer. I wonder what 1975’s going to be like. My bet’s that either nobody will care what a communist traitor did, or they’ll lynch me on the spot.” She laughed as hollowly as possible. “Maybe I’ll come out and I’ll have been right all along. Fascist America. Wouldn’t that be something? How gratifying.” She snorted.

**Pearl:**

She had wondered offhandedly before arrival how Peridot was actually surviving the prison, so it didn't surprise her to hear that, even if it wasn't the nicest concept to think about. Much worse to experience, certainly, she had nothing to complain about in comparison besides a tarnished reputation.

It was clear that one thing that hadn't changed was Peridot's talkativeness, but just like before she paid close attention to each word. Certainly more in control of her emotions than their prior, less restrictive, meetings. She'd had some level of experience since then. “I prefer not to think about that far in the future. Too many possibilities, and not that many that I would prefer.” She paused. “They stripped me of my clearance, you know. I'm just an average Jane now, with a knack for science and not the best reputation following her around. Well, better than… er.” 

**Peridot:**

“Better than a commie spy and her idiot wife?” She said, the words coming out with the obvious amount of venom to them. “It must be nice.” She said, deciding to leave it at that. She began to remember why she hated this woman, so, and she finally realized it. Yes, it was what she did, but it was that, thinking about it, and this was something Peridot had thought about for a while, as she’d had time to think about it for a while, it was that Pearl did worse than Peridot did, and Peridot became the one who suffered for it.

Peridot and Lapis were the sacrifices for their countries. A spy brought to justice and a failed spy noted in some Russian obituary. She hoped the Russians had obituaries. She’d never asked Lapis, and Lapis was a Georgian, anyway, so she might not even know. Pearl, though? Pearl committed crimes dozens of times worse than Peridot ever could. She was the conductor of a deadly orchestra, Peridot was the trumpeter in the corner of the mass of musicians, and yet Pearl was merely brought down to average Jane while Peridot saw her wife killed, her nation turn on her, and... “Dammit, Pearl.”

**Pearl:**

She may have made some questionable decisions in her time, but Pearl wasn't dumb, and she knew that the conversation would reach a point like this eventually. This foresight didn't keep her stomach from tying up into knots, though. “Peridot, I… you're not an idiot. Even I know that.” This was the immediate reply, the only one she could latch onto without debating the consequences in her head of what her words would do. Always overthinking. Dammit Pearl, indeed.

She hesitated, considering her options, before continuing. “I'm not entirely oblivious to the reality you have to face in here every day, and I'm sure you weren't either when you decided to do all this in the first place. So although I understand any regrets you might have and actually feel some level of sympathy for the crap you have to deal with, this is not something I will take any blame for. I've had enough of that, personally.”

**Peridot:**

She thought about this. Genuinely. Pearl, as much as she hated to admit it, had a point. She could respect this. “Fine. I-” She stopped, pausing. “I see where you’re coming from, honestly. I disagree with you on pretty much everything, but...Shit. I guess we may as well talk more politely then, right? I’m not going to apologize, but I did know what I was getting into.”

She sighed, the cheap fabric of the prison uniform still rubbing against her skin as she breathed. She’d learned to tune the sensation out, but it was always there. “...What did I miss? About the world, about you, about the generals, about anything? I know Lapis is dead. I got that much from listening to other people’s conversations. You probably never knew why she ‘corrupted’, me, right? She was never much of a good communist, and I doubt she told. If she did tell, I doubt anyone listened.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl ran through the last five years in her head before responding. It had been an interesting half-decade, on all levels. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to spend it in the same place, doing the same routine, wearing the same clothes, everything - the same. Static, unchanging. She might not have agreed with Peridot, but there was still some pity. “The world's kept marching on to God knows what. I assume you at least know that Ike’s the president now.” Did she? The fact that Pearl didn't know the answer to that was uncomfortable.

“The generals, well, Jaspers and Bismuth made up finally, or so I've heard. For me? Spent some time at a few different universities, was put through a hearing of my own, and now I don't have any sort of clearance. Not much respect either.” She paused. “I… I never really knew Lapis. I left after the war, as you know, tried to stay away for the most part. All I know of her is through Feynman, for the most part. And the press of course.”

**Peridot:**

“I didn’t know that Ike became president. That’s good. You heard that he wanted the bombs not to be dropped, right? Thought the Japanese had surrendered. He urged Truman, supposedly, from what I read of him, to not drop the damn bombs. My words, not his. So...Good for America, I guess. I’m a bit more hopeful. Still, everything might well fall apart, but at least it probably won’t fall apart right now.

“Wait. Feynman? What happened to Feynman?” Peridot ignored the fact that Pearl didn’t know what happened to Lapis. Peridot shouldn’t be so curious. Lapis was dead. A corpse. A wasted life of the Soviet intelligence service. A traitor and a failure. Lapis was gone, and yet Peridot couldn’t forget. “What happened to Amethyst? I assume she’s doing fine?” She said, with more mild bitterness than actual resentment. Amethyst, she’d long concluded during her sleepless cell nights, wasn’t a monster or a villain. In Amethyst’s place, a different Peridot would have done the same thing. That was the fucking joke, wasn’t it? She could have prayed to God, like she’d been taught, and had faith in her country. She had long since decided, though, stuck here, that if there was a god, he would have spared the lives of those in the two burning cities, he would have stopped fascism, stopped the World Wars, and as for faith in her country? Well, she still had those dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said that this was partially inspired by "The Altar of the Green Rock"? Well, somewhere along the line this got a lot darker.
> 
> AotGR (found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8118916/chapters/18610771 ) definitely seems to have a different tone.
> 
> Honestly, I'm surprised that Atomic got this dark, but I (RiverDelta) like it, Erude likes it, and I hope that if they're reading it, Romans-Art and TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead (The author of "Altar") like it as well.
> 
> I think this chapter is where it starts to REALLY diverge in tone and focus from the Romans-Art comics and especially "Altar".
> 
> Any thoughts on the story or on this minor ramble I'd love to hear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Pearl:**

She hadn't known, apparently, President of the United States of America for over two years now and she hadn't caught wind of it. Pearl hated being uninformed, at least ever since really delving into the depths of science and education. No outside knowledge for five years…

“Amy is doing quite well for herself. She's made a name for herself at Cornell and Caltech, among other places, and honestly in between the sarcastic quips and eating she's one of the most brilliant people I know. She's still convinced you're a nutcase.” Pearl let a small, slightly uncomfortable chuckle pass through her lips. She wasn't convinced Peridot was entirely sane herself, but she at least had a basic grasp of her reasoning behind the treason.

**Peridot:**

“Well, so much for me hoping that she’d developed some more empathy. I mean, I spend night after night analyzing exactly why she did it...The answer to that is because she came from a society which conditioned her to feel loyalty to her country, fought the Nazis and saw the Soviets as another totalitarian enemy of her homeland, and honestly didn’t need any more trauma after Arline...and she doesn’t change at all.

“How fucking typical. Oh, I’m Amy Feynman, I’m a genius, the world respects me, I don’t do things like betray my country and let my lovers be killed by oppressive foreign governments! Also, I concluded that in her place, in her shoes, if Lapis had been an American who passed away, I’d have done the same thing to a traitorous Amethyst. Nice to know that the empathy’s being passed around like goddamn candy, isn’t it?” Her speech had become wild and choppy by this point, slowing down only to form resentful snarl-words. Finally, she calmed herself down. “Sorry about that.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl eyed Peridot as she worked through her speech, listening closely and at least understanding her point of view without agreeing much at all. She didn't acknowledge the apology, not deeming it necessary in the first place. “Ah. I, er, get why you would feel like that. She certainly hasn't changed much over the years and I doubt she would like to. Empathy hurts, and she would probably say that she has no time for that sort of added stress in her schedule. She was angry enough at me when I mentioned our… previous correspondence, after she found you out.”

She sighed, which was becoming a common occurrence here. The place felt like it sucked the life out of you, like a DMV you couldn't leave. Pearl doubted she could last a week, much less five years. Which would be adding up to much more over time for Peridot. “I wouldn't dwell on Amethyst. I seriously doubt she's dwelling on you.”

**Peridot:**

“Really? I’m almost certain she is. Call it me just being wishful or narcissistic, but my bet, knowing how I think, at least, is that she has me in mind. Maybe every so often, maybe all the time. Maybe I’m her shadow. Maybe she has pangs of regret every so often, or at least sympathy. Maybe she feels nothing but hate.

“My point is that she probably thinks of me. If you stab someone in the back a few times over the course of half of a decade, the victim’s going to remember your name. If she’s pretending to not care, I’d guess it’s some kind of ruse. We both know her. She did that kind of thing a lot.”

**Pearl:**

Pearl shrugged. “I can’t claim to know how her thoughts work. Psychology certainly was never my specialty. Maybe things might have turned out better if it was, instead of…” she trailed off, glancing around the drab room. “I do know that she’s very good at distracting herself from that sort of thing. Whether through her work, or drinking, or whatever works.”

Pearl couldn’t blame Peridot for spending her time thinking about Amethyst. What else was there to do in a place like this? She had had plenty of experience in the overthinking department throughout her years, and even then she was still able to find something to do to drag her thoughts in a different direction, for the most part. Here? There was nothing of the sort. Talking to other inmates, at best. Pearl didn’t suspect that their conversations were the most enthralling.

**Peridot:**

Peridot sighed at that, honestly agreeing with Pearl. It was strange to be both full of spite at someone and also to sympathize with them. In another world, Peridot might be some advocate against the bomb on a podium, or a worker to bring peaceful nuclear energy to the world. Amethyst might be the one driven by...something, she didn’t know, but Peridot knew firsthand that nobody was incorruptible.

“You ever think about what would happen if things went a bit differently? Lapis isn’t shot down, she returns home as a soldier. I never take the deal, turning my hatred of the bomb to legal advocacy or moving to work with nuclear reactors. Amethyst? I don’t know where she fits in, but in every timeline I make she defects, but I can’t think of a reason. Wishful thinking, right?” She hollowly laughed.

**Pearl:**

“I do wonder, sometimes. Not about that situation specifically- mine was pondering what would have happened if I didn’t take the position at Los Alamos in the first place. Or if they had decided, hey, this lady looks like a commie, let’s not make her director. Would it still have succeeded? Would they have done it in time? Perhaps you wouldn’t have had any hatred in the first place if that was true. You might be a free woman right now.”

She looked away, pausing. The other thought, which she didn’t voice, was that it might not have made a difference. Whether that was comforting or not, she wasn’t entirely sure. She might have just been a means to an end, an expendable one at that. Inevitability was a less than cheerful thought.

**Peridot:**

Peridot, however, saw no reason not to bring that up. “I would have defected as long as I was part of the project, and there had to be a project to keep the Nazis from getting a bomb. There wasn’t really much that you could have changed. Even if you weren’t part of the project, that would mean that either the Nazis won the war or there was another person with your talents.

“You could have spoke up on our defense, or persuaded me that what I was doing was foolish and that there were other ways to change the world. The second would be not impossible but really fucking hard, and the first? Ha.”

**Pearl:**

“The war in Europe had been over for months by the time we used the bomb? Did it save American lives? Perhaps. A full on invasion of Japan would have been a slaughter. That was Truman’s reasoning, anyhow. It’s still impossible either way to not feel the guilt of the project pushing down on me. I can try and ignore it, and believe me, I do, but it never really leaves you.

“Did I ever tell you about my meeting with Truman, all those years ago? He wanted to congratulate me for all our hard work at Los Alamos.” The last sentence came out as if she spoke it between gritted teeth, cynicism creeping through. “I told him what I really thought. I thought I put it in light enough terms, at least. Nothing against you, Mr. President, but I can’t help but feel that I have blood on my hands.” She paused before continuing. “He threw me out of that Oval Office. Said never to step foot in there again. I wonder what he was really thinking, behind the words. Behind that anger.”

**Peridot:**

“Shame. My best guess is that he was just ashamed that someone either said what he didn’t want to think or said what he had been thinking on some level the whole time. Maybe both. That said, I...never heard about that. I respect you a lot more, now, Pearl. I can never forgive you for what you did, but I’ve always kind of understood why you did it, and, again, in your position I would have been a major cause of the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the complete restructuring of the geopolitical status quo.”

Peridot knew this was a meaningless compliment, even a vaguely insulting one, but whatever. “...Sorry. That was...not a good compliment.” At least she was self-aware enough to admit to it. A far cry from the raving lunatic. “How do you see me? Idiot traitor seduced by a Russian?” She smiled.

**Pearl:**

She raised an eyebrow. The backhanded compliment didn’t affect her much, she had already blamed herself enough in her own time to be too much more insulted by an outsider’s perspective. In a twisted way, it was almost amusing. Sickeningly. Her thought process moved on to the question. “You’re not an idiot. Seduced? Maybe. I do believe you really did love her, and it’s certainly possible that it was reciprocated. I’d have to have known her better.

“As for you… I understand your sentiment, although I certainly disagree with the methods. If we’re talking about changing positions, in a different run it’s certainly possible I might have taken that path myself with a seed of inspiration planted at one point or another. You did what you thought was right, and I can’t hate you as a person for that. You know how I feel about the bomb. I can’t say I wanted it leaked to the Soviets, but I suppose I never really had a say in what you wanted to do.”

**Peridot:**

“You kind of did. You were my boss, and you confided in me a few times. The treason was something that could risk me my job, and for one reason or another I always valued my position at Los Alamos, if not, you know, my time. So you’d have had leverage.” She laughed again.

“Look, if I’m laughing a lot it’s because this is in a really strange way kind of a sick joke to me. The one person who visits me when I’m completely screwed over isn’t my father, or, god forbid, my wife, but you. Not my worst enemy, not my best friend, a milquetoast fuckin’ symbol of everything I fought against. Well, ‘fought’ is the wrong way to put it. I never could have won. I was one person fighting against the head of Los Alamos, my country’s government at a height of paranoia, and my country itself. So...You’re the embodiment of everything I futilely struggled against. Honestly, at first I thought Lapis was coming to talk to me. Then I heard she was killed. So I thought Amethyst would come, to tell me how wrong I was and how much of a bitch I had been. She never came. But you...God dammit, you, Julia Pearl Oppenheimer, you came. What a joke.” She kept laughing and laughing and laughing at that.

**Pearl:**

She remained silent, watching Peridot as she spoke and laughed. She couldn’t tell whether the laughter was truly directed at her, or at the situation, or if it even made a difference. She could have easily made some sarcastic quip in reply, but what would be the point? She waited until she was sure Peridot was finished before speaking up.

“I had to tie up loose ends. Give myself an acceptable ending to all this. Los Alamos, I mean. It’s always going to be there in my mind, but I can’t leave any sort of doubts about it. That includes you. I suppose that does come off as a joke, to you. I hope it’s funny enough to you to last however long you have to stay in this hellhole.”

**Peridot:**

“Oh, god no, this isn’t going to last until 1975. Hell, I doubt that it’ll last past 1960. I should get another five years out of it, tops, but that’s a very generous estimate, and honestly, I doubt even that. This place is hell, Pearl. You’re right about that. So should I have said nothing? Yeah. I don’t see me as being a martyr. I think I did what was the right thing at the time, but I should have done the wrong thing. I was an idealist.

“One thing that espionage and prison have taught me is that idealists who don’t have power like you or who hold the wrong kinds of ideals end up arrested or dead. That’s life. Lapis didn’t even have the benefit of an ideal. She was running from ideals. Betrayed the Soviets once, failed the Soviets again. You know what the Soviet Union was made from, Pearl? Idealism. More proof to keep idealism subjugated to pragmatism. I should have fucking known.”

**Pearl:**

“My idealism had me thrown out of the White House and stripped of my clearance and reputation. And all I did was talk about it. So I certainly understand where you’re coming from.” 1975. Pearl tried to imagine what the world could look like then. Would there be another war? Would whoever was in charge decide to use the bomb again? The state of the union had drastically changed in the last twenty, and she had a hard time visualizing what it would look like in the next. “What are you going to do? When you get out?” If you get out, Pearl thought to herself grimly.

**Peridot:**

“Well, I’d first want to do the obvious and go to Georgia. If the Soviet Union ever falls, but it probably won’t. It’s just wishful thinking. I’d like to be able to see her family or hometown or something without having to deal with the threat of being incarcerated again or shot in a Soviet prison as a failed spy.

“If the Soviet Union doesn’t fall, then my first priority would be to go home to Austin, see if I could get a job teaching engineering or doing something that wouldn’t help in murder. It’s not like the army’s going to invite me back, given my past track record. That, and I’d want to see if I could do something to remember her. I don’t know. Something. I haven’t figured that out. I’d also try and get my hands on some history books, to have some idea of what happened in my absence. Working at a university might be nice, actually. I could make some new friends. Maybe I could write a book.” That last sentence came out like a joke.

**Pearl:**

Pearl hadn’t even considered the possibility of the Soviet Union falling. It sounded like wishful thinking, as if she had expected America to fall apart by that time. It was clear how much Peridot cared about this failed Georgian spy that Pearl never had gotten to meet. She wondered how mutual the feelings really were. “You think any universities would hire the failed turncoat?” She meant it jokingly, but it certainly didn’t have to be taken in that fashion.

“When that day comes, feel free to look me up. I’ll probably be at one university or another...who am I kidding? You probably never want to see my face again. I wouldn’t blame you.” She chuckled softly.

**Peridot:**

“Well, considering my crime would be thirty years old, nonviolent, and against the military, when universities tend to be more liberal, I’d say I have a decent shot, assuming the country isn’t fascist or something. If it’s another Red Scare, I’ll keep my head down and maybe become a technician of some kind, and if it’s fascist...I’m sure I’ll either still be here or dead.” More little sparks of laughter.

“So my future doesn’t really look bright, but I’m hoping for the best. After all, what am I going to be able to change? Especially now that Russia has the bomb and nuclear armageddon’s on the table. We might all just cook.” She chuckled softly, in a way meant to approximate Pearl’s chuckling.

**Pearl:**

“If that was true, then the future would be very bright indeed.” She couldn’t help herself with that one, and a small fit of giggles escaped. She’d begun to realize over the years that a small joke about the whole thing from time to time was necessary to keep her from imploding in on herself emotionally.

“Do you know the story behind the man who founded the Nobel Prize? Alfred Nobel? His original invention was dynamite. The Nobel Prize was created in the first place because of a misunderstanding. A newspaper had mistakenly reported Nobel as dead, and in the obituary called him ‘The Merchant of Death.’ Of course, he didn’t want to be remembered that way, and hastily came up with a new way to be remembered. And it worked. What are they going to write in my obituary, Peridot? All I’ve done is grieve about my mistake and explain to others how bad of a mistake it was in hopes that nobody makes a similar one again.”

**Peridot:**

“That’s always how it’s been with you, isn’t it? You’re a historical figure. Everything you do matters. Your mistake is the world’s mistake, everything always goes back to you and your failure. Your obituary’ll be long, it’ll talk about all of your achievements, and people will be able to contrast ‘she was a mother of the atomic bomb’, with ‘she fought against nuclear proliferation’, ‘she ran the Atomic Energy Commission’, ‘she was kicked from Truman’s office for opposing the bomb’, ‘she worked on the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation for molecular wavefunctions’, ‘she worked on the theory of electrons and positrons’, ‘she was a founder of American theoretical physics’, and ‘she directed the Institute for Advanced Study’ with ‘she was one of the people who created the atomic bomb’.

“You’ll have a long list of your achievements contrasted with your one glaring failure, and it wouldn’t even be a mistake you made yourself. Blame Groves, Jasper, Bismuth, and Amethyst as well. Other great scientists. Us nonames on the project. What will my obituary say, if the Earth hasn’t been char-broiled? ‘Olivia Peridot Marshall. 1923-Whenever. Was notable for a brief period for her treason, arrested.’ If that.”

**Pearl:**

“I’m always going to blame myself for this whole damn thing, no matter how true your points are. I’m beginning to realize that. Perhaps some worse weapon will be created down the line, so my legacy can pass into obscurity as Nobel’s did with dynamite.

“It could go the other way, too. I’ve thought about this quite a bit. An arms race is bound to happen, but depending on how smart our future leaders end up being they might realize that using the bomb again would equal annihilation. My… our, I guess… killing machine might finish off total war for good, out of fear. How ironic would that be? I spend my whole life regretting and it turns out to be a good thing after all.” She scoffed. “I don’t believe it, though. There’s going to be one idiot down the line that ruins it for everybody.”

**Peridot:**

It was then that she stood up and silently walked to the door. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t yell, she didn’t respond with anger or hand-flailing. A different Peridot would. A younger one, or one who hadn’t experienced being broken down in so many different ways. So she didn’t. She turned to a guard, and spoke softly. “I’d like to end this visiting session early. Would that be possible?”

He nodded, and Peridot and the guard left the room. They vanished. Of course, this wouldn’t be the last time that Peridot and Pearl met. It would simply be the end of the conversation. The idea that the bomb could be a good thing. The arrogance of the statement. The nerve. The idiocy. The delusion.

She wasn’t dignifying that with a response.

**Pearl:**

She watched with some initial surprise as the scientist turned traitor rose and left the room rather quickly, but not hastily. It appeared to be calmly calculated, which was unnerving, and Pearl opened her mouth to say something before stopping herself. What was the point? She merely sat there, jaw slightly unhinged and eyebrows raised a tad.

Pearl genuinely didn't understand what she had said or done to provoke a reaction like that. Or, it might have been better described as the lack of a reaction. Whatever it was, it was enough to make her stomach feel as if it was tying up into knots. She knew she'd return some day, whether that was next week or five years from then. Her desire to tie up loose ends hadn't succeeded, quite obviously. For now, though, she just stood and turned, intentions set on returning home. She had a date with a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of wine that she didn't want to miss.

 

**Dec 1st, 1949 - Los Alamos, New Mexico**

**Peridot:**

Peridot was happy. That was it. She lay there, on the neatly made bed in her bedroom in her home. Lapis lay there reading some magazine or something on a couch, and Peridot took in the situation.

  
No participation in any atrocities today, Amethyst was sick with food poisoning, so she didn’t have to face her, Pearl had other matters...Hell, Ruby even paid for Peridot’s Coke from the vending machine. Time to test just how good today was. Because today? There would probably never be a day quite as good as today, December 1st, 1949. “Hey. Lapis. You never told me what got you sent here to begin with. Today’s been amazing, and I was wondering if I could push my luck. If you feel like you’re up to telling me, obviously.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Lapis:**

“Hm?” Her mind hadn't registered the question yet, as she let her eyes scan to the end of the paragraph of the article she was reading. Over time, she'd become more acquainted with American culture, even enjoying the occasional magazine. She folded the page, laying it down on her chest before really hearing what Peridot had said.

Things were much more open between the two of them now, compared to the first few months, but when she could Lapis normally attempted to circumvent questions about her past. Technically, she had the excuse of keeping Peridot ignorant on the subject in case of a failure by them, and/or attempt by the US to gain information on Lapis through the scientist. Really, though, she just didn't like to talk about it most of the time. “Is it that important to know, Peri?” She turned on the couch to face Peridot, giving her a half-smile with the addition of her nickname at the end of the response.

**Peridot:**

“We’ve been legally married for two years, and I know that you probably still see me as a pawn in whatever complex game of chess you play with the Russians and the US, but today was a really good day for me, and I’ve tried to be as helpful as possible, but honestly I don’t think we can go on for much longer, with what the NKVD are asking, and could you please, please just help to immortalize this day or whatever? Honestly, the thing is that I feel like you tell me nothing, and yeah, our love is probably faked, but it’s hard to go on when that’s more and more apparent.”

She sighed and lay back on the bed, thinking aloud to herself. “But it’ll never happen. Because I’m just a pawn. Because this is some high-stakes game of nuclear poker. Because I probably fucked up four years ago, because I’m losing my mind, because I gave up my life for this shadow, this fake bullshit...Fuck!” She yelled, just to get out emotion. “Uh, sorry about all that.”

**Lapis:**

“Peridot, it's not like that, I-” The words caught in her throat as she sat up fairly quickly in response to her partner’s outburst. There were too many thoughts and possible replies to come up with one good one in instant response, and instead she quickly moved to take a seat next to Peridot on the bed, thinking of what to say. She really had come to care for the scientist, believe it or not, but their two vastly different approaches to handling stress and conflict was bound to clash from time to time. Lapis knew she had to compromise with words, something, say something.

“I'm just as much of a pawn as you are. Maybe even more so. And I do… have feelings for you…” she managed to get out. It was sincere, if a bit sloppily phrased under pressure. She took the pillow out from under her, kneading her fingers into it absentmindedly. Fuck it. “Now. Do you want the long version or the short version?”

**Peridot:**

“Give me the long version.” She said, as she lay there on the bed, her right hand moving over to sit on Lapis’ thigh. She closed her eyes and listened. Hopefully this wouldn’t be something that would force a divorce. That could be very bad. For obvious reasons.

The proper phrase would be ‘everything collapses and we both die’.

**Lapis:**

Lapis leaned back, sighing lightly. Of course she would want the long version- why even ask? She wasn't lying- she did care for Peridot- but as they both knew she wasn't one to often discuss her past, or her feelings. So, the words felt alien and strange as the formed at her lips, the first time she had really voiced her past. “You know that I was from Georgia. I'm not going to joke around here- you know which Georgia. I won't go into detail about how I was raised, it's not relevant. The important part was that I became a Night Witch- part of the female Soviet Air Force equivalent. The name was appropriate- we fought at night, and most of the time they never saw us coming.

“Most of the time being the key word. They-” The words threatened to catch in her throat. “The Germans shot me down, the Luftwaffe, and obviously I didn't die. That might have been some relief, actually. I know you've wondered about the scar,” she said, referring to the large burn scar down the center of her back, “And that's where I got it. 

“They took me to a PoW camp, and that's where I stayed until the war was over. I'd really, really prefer not to go into the details there. I made my way back to the USSR, where they promptly declared me a traitor to cause after the usual interrogation (read: torture) techniques.” There was a growing edge of cynicism in her voice, not directed at Peridot but at the memory.

“They gave me one alternative to execution. I think you can piece together what that might have been.”

**Peridot:**

“...I kind of expected that.” Dammit, Peridot. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean it in a rude way, but it kind of made sense. I knew you were Georgian, and I could piece together that you really didn’t want to be here. Neither of us are exactly full of patriotism for our respective nations. So clearly you were forced. The burn scar seemed too rough to be deliberate, so obviously it was some kind of accident or something, making me guess that you were a blackmailed soldier, and probably not a very valued one...Oh my god, I’m so, so sorry...”

She tried to stop herself, but honestly, the damage had been done. Peridot. Insert foot into mouth. She began to tear up. “This was a mistake, wasn’t it? You wouldn’t be here unless you were forced to at gunpoint, and I was too fucking stupid to keep my mouth shut, so that’s why I’m here...It all means nothing, doesn’t- Stop. Peridot. Stop. Stop. Stop-stop-stop-stop...”

She tried to hold herself together for a few seconds, but the tiny scientist just kind of curled up on the bed, her hand touching Lapis’, taking in that warmth as the center of her entire being. “This is the part where it gets worse, isn’t it? Fuck. I know what this is. Manic depression. This is the crash, isn’t it? Wait. No. It’s not all about me, this isn’t ‘The Amazing Science Adventures of Olivia Peridot Marshall’, this is your story. It’s always been your story. Shit. I’m not making any sense, am I? Just going on and on about random shit.”

**Lapis:**

“Peri.” Her thoughts flew back from her own past to Peridot’s present, and tightened her grip on her lover's hand in an attempt to be comforting. “Take a breath. Come here.” She let her other hand move to Peridot’s back, rubbing it lightly.

“There is no story. We're in a really shitty situation, but there's no other way it could have gone and now we just have to keep going. And… we have each other. I'm right next to you. It all fucking sucks but at the very least I have an intelligent, interesting, and admittedly cute wife to make up for all that bullshit. And, you, well… have me. So we're going to have to work with that.”

She hadn't spoken this much at once in quite a while. It was an attempt to comfort herself just as much as Peridot. God knew they both needed it.

**Peridot:**

She kind of slowly sat up, with Lapis’ hand still holding her own, before breaking the hold and repositioning herself and Lapis, almost as if the both of them were merely dolls, as this arranging gave her something positive to focus on. Lapis would be lying down on the bed, and Peridot’s smaller body would do the same, facing Lapis, her limbs intertwining around Lapis’ body. Her breaths slowed down a bit as her head fell into the crook of Lapis’ neck, the long, messy blonde hair kind of getting everywhere. Peridot tried to pull it away from Lapis’ face as best as she could.

“Yeah. I have you.” She smiled a bit. “I admire you in so many different ways, Lapis. You’re stronger than I ever could be, you’ve done so much more, you’re so much more charismatic, and...Dammit. I don’t know how you tolerate me sometimes, but you’re honestly really, really amazing. Ice cold woman of mystery.”

**Lapis:**

She felt a genuine smile spread across her face as Peridot spoke, turning into a snort at the final comment. It was refreshing to laugh, as if a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders if only for that moment. She pulled Peridot a little closer, remnants of the smile still there on her face and in her eyes.

“You're not so bad yourself, you know. Brilliant. Never boring to talk to. And you can actually bring a smile to my face, which is a talent of its own. In fact, I'd say you're pretty great.” Lapis shrugged. “Which is a lot coming from an ice cold woman of mystery such as myself,” she added with a smirk, nudging the scientist. Thoughts of the past were almost entirely gone from her mind now. She was much more focused on the present.

**Peridot:**

“You know, they’ll never take this away from us. Sure, they’ll probably never know about any of this, given that we’ll probably be distorted upon recognition and all of this shit will mean fuck all...” Her words grew more and more angry as she spoke, vacillating in tone from somewhat reserved to much more forceful semi-randomly.

“They’ll never take it away from us, though. Thinking about it, we’ve changed a lot, though, haven’t we? Your mysteries have been mostly brought to light, and ‘socially adapted engineer with tantalizing nuclear secrets’ doesn’t really seem to fit me at all. That’s what the rest of the world seems to want us to be, but to hell with that. To hell with the rest of the world, to hell with the Soviet Union, to hell with America, to hell with everything. We’re here, together, as goddamn human beings. Damn them all!”

**Lapis:**

“That's the spirit. But, forget about them today. We've got each other, and you're damn right that they aren't going to take that away. Especially not today. You're right, what you said earlier. Today has been a good day, and it should be a good day. So let's forget them.”

She let one hand reach forward to stroke Peridot's hair lightly as she spoke. She personally had just as much trouble taking her mind off of things, especially this, and they could spare a day. For all they've done, really. She was going to take the opportunity either way. “You know, it's pretty attractive when you get all worked up.”

**Peridot:**

She blushed profusely at that and began to chuckle a bit, if only due to the awkwardness of it all. “You can save the movie lines, Lapis.” She continued laughing, though this was definitely better than her minor breakdown earlier. To be honest, it was kind of meant to cover up the breakdown.

“You know, this is all hilarious to me right now. In a really dark, cynical way, sure, but it’s hilarious. Here we are, Peridot and Lapis, and nobody will ever goddamn know.” She crawled up into a position not that unlike a very large cat (given her size) stretching out in the morning. “Clods, clods, clods... Everything we really are, totally meaningless. It’s like this conversation will have never existed at all. But to hell with the clods! I’ll remember this.”

**Lapis:**

“Why should they know, anyways? This is our time. Not theirs.” Lapis leaned back against the wooden headboard of the bed, crossing her legs at the ankles and adjusting herself so the scar wouldn't press too hard against the cold wood.

“I'm happy with this being one of the only damn things either Los Alamos or the NKVD doesn't monitor about us, really. We're free to say whatever we want. That's a right here, I know, but for us it feels like a luxury.”

 

**November, 1955 - Huntsville State Penitentiary**

**Peridot:**

The second visit to see Peridot seemed destined to go even more poorly than the first. In one chair sat a prison-uniformed Peridot, wishing she had a lab coat, a Los Alamos badge, anything to show that she was someone, anyone

Give me the bomb.

Give me the bomb.

Dear god, give me the bomb.

Maybe that was who she was. She’d tried to run from it over and over and over and over, tried to betray her country over it, but that was it. She’d made the Fat Man. That would be her contribution to history. She feared that she couldn’t cover that up.

Maybe it wasn’t fear.

There was almost a religious terror and awe associated with the bomb in her mind, with the mushroom cloud, with the badges, the lab coats...She hated it, she feared it, but her shadow refused to dissipate. In the other chair, across from her, was Amethyst, who, Peridot assumed, hadn’t lost her mind as much.

She wondered why Amethyst was here at all, but she had to have come for a good reason. Or just to go after her enemy. Peridot tried not to think about the inner workings of Amethyst’s mind, honestly. The days when she saw morality as black and white were nostalgic.

**Amethyst:**

“What the hell, Peridot?”

From the moment that she had decided to go to the prison, to come eye to eye with her ‘friend’ who had betrayed her and the entire project almost a decade ago, Amethyst had been thinking of what she would say to her when that day came. She still had no idea until the words left her lips. What else could she say? Maybe the traitor would have thought of a reason herself after all this time rotting in prison.

It wasn’t hard to tell that Feynman was still jaded about the entire situation. Those few weeks when coworkers were abuzz with conversations about the Georgian atomic spy and her co-conspirator she would either change the subject or decide to go for a walk. Eventually, people knew not to bring up the subject, and Amethyst was happy to try and forget it all.

That wasn’t going to happen though, and thoughts continued to linger. Mainly, questions. Why? How long? What was real between them? They continued to collect in the back of her head, popping up unexpectedly in certain dreams or memories triggered by simple objects or photographs.

So that was how she ended up there, in the hard plastic chair at that ugly state prison, face to face with the turncoat, the traitor. It seemed to be an appropriate greeting.

**Peridot:**

“'What the hell?' It was stupid. Idealism. Childish idealism. No, that would imply that it was somehow acceptable, or good or whatever. You wanna know what it was, Amethyst?” She glared at the floor. “It was nothing but cowardice. I wanted to run away from this. So I tried, and I tried, and I tried, and for a while I thought that maybe I could even have someone else to care about while running...

“It all meant nothing. It was stupid, self-destructive, and I should have kept my damned mouth shut. You want to know if our friendship was ever genuine? It was. Honestly, I’ve heard your voice, so to speak, there in my cell, keeping me from completely losing it.

“I think that what I did was, in an abstract sense, right, but, then, so were Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I obsessed over the details there, too. You all deserved better, and I acted like a coward, a liar, and a manipulator. Just don’t blame Lapis, okay?”

**Amethyst:**

“You know what normal people do when they're worried about something, or they're scared, Peridot? They talk to their damn friends about it, for god’s sake. They don't bottle it up inside and then get in cahoots with the Soviets. How do you even let it get to that? Sure, I get why you'd feel guilty about the project. But you knew what we were getting into just like anyone else with some level of clearance and common sense.

“You know what? I don't think I believe you. I think if you really thought of us as close enough friends I would have figured out what was going on a lot sooner. I'm not that thick. Good friends don't straight up lie to each other. And I'll blame whoever the hell I damn please, thank you very much.” Her voice fluctuated between confusion, betrayal, and plain anger.

**Peridot:**

“Fine. Blame me. I honestly deserve it. I freely chose to betray the trust of my friends and my nation based on what turned out to be paranoid delusions. Just...You never even knew who Lapis really was, did you? Well, it doesn’t matter, now that she’s dead, so I guess I may as well spill the beans. She never wanted to come to America, she never even signed up for the NKVD.

“She was a bomber pilot who was shot down, and when she was captured and turned traitor by the Germans, the Russians had to punish her somehow when they recaptured her. So, they made her a deal. Get in contact with a fellow traveler and get nuclear secrets out of America while pretending to be a couple, or die a traitor.

“She never was supposed to be part of this, she never wanted to be part of this, and if anything I was the anti-American ideological background there. She was just a Soviet obeying the Soviet government, and not even really enjoying it. I was the only good thing in America to her, besides maybe our magazines. She didn’t even like the fucking Coca-Cola.”

**Amethyst:**

“So she was just going through the motions, huh? Even your relationship with her was faked. Man, did you ever do anything genuine? Fake this, fake that. The entire second half of the forties must have been nothing but a huge lie for you. I can't believe you, Peridot.”

“Unless you actually did like her? She seemed cute enough in the papers. She probably used that to her advantage, right? If she really was going to die if you failed, why not make you actually fall in love with the girl to make it all the more realistic?” Amethyst snorted cynically.

**Peridot**

“What’s more likely, Amethyst? That the trained pilot forced into spying with almost zero training managed to spend two or so years not only brilliantly faking her love for me, but actually seducing me, or, alternatively, that we just fell in love?”

It was a simple question. Peridot knew that her mind wasn’t necessarily the most accurate at this point, sometime around the Fat Man she’d started to lose it, but now she hoped to test if Amethyst was as irrational as Peridot could be. She didn’t have high hopes, but she really, really wanted cold, hard logic to get through to Amethyst. They were at one point scientists. Right?

**Amethyst:**

“You managed to fool me for the same amount of time, didn't you? And I'd say I've always been a bit better at social cues than you. I think that anyone staring execution in the eye will do a hell of a lot of dancing to get out of it.

  
“She might have even fooled herself for a while. Realized subconsciously  that if she was going to have to really go through with it, it'd be easier if she tried to find something to love in you. Settled, basically. I can see that being a pretty large possibility. People are great at lying to themselves, you know.”


	8. Strong in a New Way, Chapter One: Ghosts

**PERIDOT:**

****

I think that we’ve abandoned God. Damn it. Calm down. Peridot. Calm down. Calm down. Alright. I have a tape recorder. I just got one. I am very happy with it. It seems to be recording my voice. Wait. Is this working? I hope it is. Logically, it should. I suppose I’ll have to check it or something, so as to make sure, afterward. Well, operating under the assumption that this massive thing is working, Logdate: June 2nd, 1947.

Anyway, this is Olivia Arriola Cardoso, but you (Because you’re me) and the rest of my friends know me as Peridot due to that drunk night in 1939. Wait, I was talking about God. I think. Well, to give some context for myself when I look upon these records in thirty years and no doubt confusedly wonder why I was talking about abandoning God, it’s because I keep having those visions. Not dreams. Visions. Not talking about Indian vision quest visions, or the like. I mean like I keep thinking of detailed daydreams. 

Yes. Daydreams. That is in fact the word that I would use to properly describe my current predicament. I keep thinking about death camps and atomic bombs, propaganda and soldiers marching down the streets of El Paso, people shot on the radio along with the sports and a soothing man’s voice. Those kind of thoughts. I keep seeing the future. Death camps, I ask? Yes, I. As this is for me. If anyone else is listening to my logs, please stop. I order you to stop! These are mine!

Right. Right. Anyway, we all remember Hitler, right? How could we forget him? He only dominated the American mind for years and invaded the entirety of Europe. 

Okay. Not all of Europe. He skipped Britain, for one, and Sweden. The point is that he invaded the vast majority of Europe and the Soviet Union, and put millions of people to death, based on a racial, fascist ideology. 

You already knew that, though, because you’re me and this happened only a few years ago. My point, future me, is that it’s going to happen again. Or, well, it could. It probably will. Here’s the issue. We turned down Jews trying to escape from Europe due to many of the same things that the Germans used to justify what they did. Trust me when I say that America isn’t exactly immune to prejudice, future me. 

Or, my time period’s America. Yours is most likely even worse. Remember that thing that I’m sure that you’ve tried to wipe from your memory like so much gunk on the window that is your brain? We called it the Mark III. Then we called it the Fat Man. It destroyed a city. We helped to make that bomb. That makes you, Peridot of 1977, and I, Peridot of 1947, accomplices to the murder of some 140,000 people. You know, roughly. I’d like to think that it’s making a difference, that it stopped Japan, who really were as bad as Hitler. I can’t convince myself of that.

Where am I bringing this, you ask? Or, perhaps you don’t, as the future that I’m predicting is probably there by 1977 or whenever you decide to review the tapes you made as a young woman. Fascist America! That’s what I’m talking about. Fascist America! We’re dangerously close to it. Everyone’s terrified of the commies, we have all sorts of people who aren’t white to purge, and we’re all so happy about this vile thing, the bomb, country’s fascinated with it, that we’re forgetting that as soon as the American Hitler harnesses that energy and uses those scapegoats, and he is coming, we’ll be the first fascist nation with the atomic bomb. Every war we fight will include death tolls like Nagasaki.

[Mild and self-mocking self-congratulation] All because of me. Yay.... So I guess this is the day I’ve decided to do something about it. Sooner or later some Ruskie spy’s going to show up here, in this rented Houston apartment, and if I can’t undo what I’ve done I’m going to damn well make sure to even the scales so that when the American swastika comes, the fascist clods won’t be the only people with the atomic bomb.

 

**JASPER:**

 

I guess that you could call me an angel. Or a ghost. I’m not sure which. On one hand, angels fly with wings. That was what I was. A pilot. I flew. On the other hand, angels served God, and damn if I’m going to serve someone who doesn’t exist.

Thinking about it, a ghost is just a memory, someone too stubborn to die. Well, fuck, looks like I’m a ghost. Or maybe I’m just a figment of Lionidze’s fucked-up psyche. I always knew she was broken. Her dead doll stare should have made that clear enough. Stupid suka.

I don’t like her much. Alright, that should have been obvious, yes, but I don’t like Lapis Lionidze very much. Ignoring the very un-Soviet name (I doubt that Lapis is a Georgian name), Lapis Lionidze should have been so much more. She should have been a soldier. A hero. A true Soviet airwoman. Someone you’d see in Pravda.

That was what we all were supposed to be. But none of us were that. You want to know what we were? We were weapons. Me? I’m at peace with that. Pilot, airwoman, soldier, weapon, that was what I was always meant to be.

All those words meant nothing when I died, when I spoke to someone. I don’t know what she was, or if I’m even thinking lucidly, I suspect that my rebirth must have been, if it happened at all, more akin to an odd dream than ascension to Heaven.

This was because I’m too stubborn to die, I assume. At any rate, sometimes, every so often, especially in counter-revolutionary and Tsarist things, you used to see Russia drawn and talked about like a woman. Mother Russia, Mother Motherland, that sort of thing. I would like to believe that the woman in the old, useless white formal clothing of a past best forgotten wasn’t her.

Mother Russia. I met her, she had nothing but shame for me, I had nothing but insults for her, it was like a dream. The Winter Palace. I have only seen pictures of the outside, so I assume that my mind, whatever it was as a ghost-memory, created an inside.

A Soviet airwoman and a symbol of Old Russia. We didn’t get along. She begged me to forswear my beliefs and my trail of blood. I told her to go fuck herself. As I walked away from her, that woman I hope is nothing more than a post-crash fever dream, I heard the oily voice of another nonexistent being. The devil. His voice was afraid. Cunning, soft, the loving sound of a husband intending terrible things, but he was afraid. He kept telling me this, as I left the room, past the endless chandeliers, the whites, the golds, through all of the luxury that would be everyone’s in the socialist future but that was hoarded in the past, and he kept telling me this.

My vision told me that he was not to blame for who I had become. That I was not a killer because of him. I had lept into that pool of blood and told myself it was for Comrade Stalin and that I shouldn’t care. Honestly, I was always a hooligan, a bitch, suka. I wouldn’t have cared.

But it was never the devil’s fault.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, "Strong in a New Way" was going to be a podcast based loosely on Atomic, with a lot of things updated or changed. Honestly, it was going to be beautiful, but technical issues and organizational mistakes led to it all kind of unraveling. Luckily, I (RiverDelta) have scripts of the podcast, and so most of the scripts will at least see some use here. If our Peridot, Pearl, Jasper, or Lapis VAs see this, feel free to request to have whatever names you so choose credited as well. They were terrific and the scripts can't quite capture their skill and idiosyncrasies. However, I'm sure they'll make for a good enough set of updates in their own rights, as, well, Atomic itself finishing is a little bit unlikely, given the whole mess that SIANW was.
> 
> Think of this as an expanded AU of Atomic. 
> 
> The notes in brackets are sort of stage directions, and I've tried to cut out all but the most important ones.


	9. Strong in a New Way, Chapter Two: The White Rabbit

 

 

**Lapis:**

 

When my family were nobles, years and years ago, before any of this shit happened, they were part of the people who ruled the world. Or, well, sometimes it seemed like it. We were descended by marriage from those in the court of Peter the Great, the court of Catherine, but that was a long time ago.

So, when my parents disappeared in the night, as people, you know, did, when the Bolsheviks took control, I was left with not much more than a stack of books. I was kept from going to school, then I was kept from working, if I’d gotten sick with something fatal I would have been kept from going to the hospital to keep from dying.

So I was an outcast from birth, Zhasbera. You’re the New Soviet Woman. Not me. My family, though, only left me so much. That was because your government of the people took it all. There was a book I used to read as a child, though, about a little girl...Alisa...who fell into a fantasy world where nothing made sense, and she’s stuck sort of just going along for the ride.

I could relate. Sometimes, Zhasbera, Fekla, may I call you Fekla? Fuck it. I know that you’ve never experienced what having absolutely no power over a situation is, but there you are. The Politruk. The one who had the ability to report any of us, your fucking comrades, your airwomen, for treason...Some true Soviet airwoman you turned out to be, Fekla. 

So I kept chasing that white rabbit, because what else was I going to do? It led me into the cockpit of a Po-2, it led me and you into the sights of an AA gun, it led me to a prison cell in Poland, where the Hitlerites gave me an offer at gunpoint. To get back at the country that had...[Said hastily, as though denying an accusation] I couldn’t turn that offer down. Of course. I didn’t. Why would I, Zhasbera? 

Anyway, right now, I’m sleeping in a small bed in a Houston apartment, in Texas. Floral print. The recording device is on. You look really out of place, Great and Mighty Political Officer Fekla Adamovna Zhasbera. New Soviet Woman. We’re in America now. 

I should probably talk about the American. She speaks with an accent. I haven’t heard it before. She doesn’t have a right leg. Some sort of false leg. I asked her if she served in the war, she said she was part of her army’s engineering corps. 

I expected worse. She’s messy, chaotic, tends to ramble on, and she has the strangest fascination with a radio show. “Camp Pining Hearts”? I believe it is Canadian. You should hear her talk about it, Fekla.  

I think I’m starting to like America. I might not have any choice in my life, but I never had a choice to begin with, and this is so far away from Russia indeed. Not that the NKVD isn’t watching me. I think that I could convince myself to love this woman. I think. I’ve done this kind of thing before, [sly emphasis] Politruk.

 

**PERIDOT:**

 

Love at first sight is real. There’s no other way to put it. Honestly. I’m looking at this woman, this spy, and she’s beautiful. She has her hair in this kind of bob cut, like something out of a photo, or something, you know, like of a 1920s flapper. It’s black hair, like, ink black, and I could tell that it was poorly managed.

She looked uncomfortable in the tight steel-blue jacket, the cinched waist and wide hips of her long skirt...dramatic, I suppose. She looked swanky, but she also looked like she wasn’t used to it. She had this kind of awkward walk, and at one point she kind of complained about her clothes being weirdly tight and itchy. I wonder if Ruskies dress differently. Probably. 

She’s beautiful, though. Like an angel. She has that devil-may-care look going on, and she gives me this stare, like, one of those stares that goes straight through you, and checks this picture in her hand, and then looks at me, then looks at the picture again, then looks at me. 

Finally, after doing this, like, four times, I finally ask “Is there something wrong”? Then she says  “I was hoping your photo was a mistake”,  and I roll my eyes. “Wow. Nice to meet you too, Lazuli.” That’s her name, apparently. Lazuli. Or, well, I’m sure it’s a fake name, because I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone with that name before. It sounds French, maybe. Lapis Lazuli. I think that’s a stone? 

Okay, I’m 90% sure right now that this woman isn’t actually named Lapis Lazuli. I know that theoretically someone could be named Lapis Lazuli, and she probably has some whole cover story about this, but right now, I’m deeply suspicious as to...I do have to wonder if they gave her a rock-themed name to reference my drunken nickname. Peridot and Lapis Lazuli. How queer.

Anyway, so, I tried to talk to her, and figure out what her deal was. I asked her how the flight was. She said  “Flight was fine.”   And then I was like “So...you’re a Russian spy, right? And we have to get married, and pretend to be in love, so that I can send nuclear secrets through you to the USSR?” She nodded, and I kind of tried to pretend like I knew what the plan was past that, so I didn’t ask anything, but I’m pretty sure that she knows I have no idea what the hell I’m doing. Then I asked “Do they train you to be cold and mysterious over there?” She nodded, and her hair fluttered a bit in the wind. She has a body to die for, by the way. She moves like the wind itself, or something. She’s graceful. She knows what she is.

I don’t know what she is, but she obviously does. 

We shared drinks, red wine, I didn’t drink any, she did, and I asked what Russia was like. Her response was actually...It was I think the first glimpse of, like, humanity under the mask.  “Parts of Russia are very beautiful, from what I’ve seen. The society itself used to be something, too.”  I had to lie awake at night to realize just how dangerous that sentence was. I asked if she was a good Communist right after she said it, though. She smiled at me and nodded just a bit, like it was a joke. Finally, I asked what she thought about the bomb. She just took another sip of wine.

So why do I love her? It’s probably just lust, or me having a crush on her, or merely desperation. After all, she is my only lifeline now that I’ve sold my soul to the USSR. Sold my soul. Christ, I’m acting like these people are the devil. They really aren’t, Peridot. That’s Present Peridot. Not Future Peridot. If I don’t specify, I’m talking to myself. Anyway, the Soviets fought with us. They fought the Nazis. They’re...just another kind of hero.

Heroism. Sometimes I think that that’s a myth. Heroism. Doing the right thing, on a grand scale. Sure, there’s, you know, being nice, to people, and saving lives, and that kind of heroism exists, but sometimes I think that countries are incapable of it.

I hope that the USSR and US are fundamentally good. I want to believe that in the end the two superpowers are good enough that they’re trying to do what they’re talking about, improving the world. I want to believe that people can be good with that kind of power. I want to believe that they won’t drop the bombs over and over. 

But I can’t. So now all I’ve got to hold onto is this hasty love with a cold, hard-drinking broad that I can’t stop thinking about.


	10. Strong in a New Way, Chapter Three: War and Glory, Reinvention

**PERIDOT:**

 

You know, I think that this might work. She came into the apartment, and we talked for a bit, and then slept, and then I woke up, and she had for me some scrambled eggs and coffee. I’m sure she was just playing the part, of course, but I appreciated the gesture.

I looked into her eyes, though, and they’re dead. It’s like she has two glass eyes that just happen to work. You know how eyes are the windows to the soul? Well, if that’s true, then Lapis Lazuli doesn’t actually have a soul. Not that I’m complaining.

She seems very nice. I’m sure you can be a wonderful person without a soul. I know that some might disagree, but I’m a rational person and a woman of science, and so, given that there’s no actual proof for the existence of the soul... 

Whatever. My point is that she’s like a doll. Her body’s perfect, but her eyes just aren’t right. It’s kind of something else. I can’t help but be around her, though. The more I stay by her, eat her food, listen to her speak in what I’m guessing is a fake accent, the more I feel whole.

I feel human.

As though, well, as though I have someone. I feel like I can reinvent myself, diary. Is this a diary? Whatever. It’s kind of a diary. Diary, future Peridot, I feel like...Have you ever....No, no. My point is that she has this kindness.

You barely see it, but it’s in her motions. As we started to interact, she started to just relax a bit and move differently, and her motions begun to really carry this kind of warmth. I don’t have anyone else, but I think I might be able to absolve myself of what I’ve done.

 

**JASPER:**

 

You sold us out, You sold us out, You sold us out, You sold us out, You sold us out, suka, you sold us out. Counter-revolutionary, wrecker, spy, traitor, you’re worse than a disgrace, suka, suka, suka.  **Nazi.**

 

**LAPIS:**

 

Stop saying that! I’m...I’m not a bitch. Or a Nazi. I just...It was a means to an end, and...it ended what I intended it to. Do you think that I wanted to work with them? We both know what they did, now. Or, well, I do. I’m not even sure that you’re real. 

But it was a means to an end, Jasper. We both went down.  Because you abandoned the rest of us and left us wide open, Lionidze.  That’s bullshit and you know it, Zhasbera! We both went down, I got lucky, you didn’t. I had to survive somehow.

Sure, I turned on Russia, but Russia, and it was Russia and not the Soviet Union, fuck you, it was Russia, they took everything from me. My Russia was dead, Jasper, and your Soviet bullshit killed it. I wanted revenge. 

Maybe that was understandable. Maybe it was childish. Either way, I found myself there in a cell in Poland, with the Waffen-SS. There they gave me a choice. Even you would have taken it. I just...I just don’t delude myself by believing that I did it because I had to. I had to, but I also wanted to.

I’m open about that, Jasper. I’m not so drenched in lies that I can’t admit that to myself. Before you blame me, though, remember that if your Russia didn’t make the Nazis look like a good option, and think about how far your Russia would have to fall to do that, then I would never have gone to such an extreme. 

So here I am. Hoping to reinvent myself. I’m not a Nazi anymore, Jasper, and I never was one at heart. I just...did what they said, and felt like some idiot child that I was doing the right thing, or what I wanted to do, or whatever.

It’s a goddamn haze.

 

**PERIDOT:**

 

Dear Future Peridot. In case you’ve begun to forget all of this there in 1977 or whatever, I should probably get into the people I actually have as friends. Besides my infatuation. There’s Dr. Amy Baumann, a very theoretical physicist who more or less has only deigned to be with us peons because she thinks that we’re pretty funny, and has a very strong friendship with Pearl.

There’s Dr. DeMayo, that would be Rose, she’s the insufferable one with the fondness for pink who’s taller than Jasper. Her response to me asking who that was was along the lines of:  Oh. Yeah. Jasper. You mean Zhasbera? My ghost. The one that’s following me. The dead pilot. You don’t see her, Peridot, right?  (No, but, Lapis, if you listen to this, I’m sorry you have to deal with her ghost, I...appreciate you confiding in me...)

Everyone deals with grief in different ways, I guess. Anyway, Dr. DeMayo is somehow seemingly morally perfect and also one of the people who tries to ignore the moral ramifications of what we’re doing. Amy’s similar. There's lots of them. That leaves Pearl, who’s a bit above me, and, well...She’s brilliant. Intelligent, sophisticated, organized, she treats engineering almost as a fine art as much as a science. She’s in love with Dr. DeMayo, and good luck, I guess.

 

JASPER:

Look at that, Lapis. Peridot’s finally lost her mind. There she is. Standing there still. Like a doll. Dead eyes. Now you finally match. Maybe you are meant to be a couple.

Having your hero hang herself does that. Maybe you just bring death wherever you go, Lapis. You never were a soldier. You weren’t even a weapon. You’re a fucking bullet. Expendable. Useful for one purpose. Deserving of no compassion. Considering your previous track record, you’re a defective bullet.

Go comfort Cordoso before she ends up like Pearl.

 

PEARL:

 

Hello, Dr. Cordoso. Olivia. Should I call you Olivia? Or Peridot? I’m really not sure. I’ll go with Peridot, if only because you seemed to always prefer it the most. Peridot. Maybe it was an attempt to emulate me? Dr. Pearl Nacre? Your superior? Your...I don’t want to say idol, as that would be very self-congratulatory of me, but...

At any rate, as you’ve always preferred Peridot, ever since we met, and I never learned why you went by such an odd name, I suppose I should begin. Good evening. The time is 1:00 AM, on the dot. Here I am! Standing here, at the foot of your bed! Pearl’s ghost. I suppose our unfinished business’ tied us here. Whatever it is, I hope you can find a way to fix it that isn’t completely mental. 

Shakespeare wrote in Richard II that of “Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death, and death will have his day.” I can say for certain that we have both created all of those things in our work. Nagasaki comes to mind. 

I never got to see my body, Peridot. You remember the Breaking Point, right? The so-called “Third Shot”, the third plutonium core, the one that was going to be dropped on Japan if the Little Boy and Fat Man didn’t make them capitulate? After the Gadget that I saw them detonate at Socorro, the first mushroom cloud, after the Fat Man that should have damned us both to Hell, there was the Breaking Point. The nickname was cute, of course. Blame Dr. Baumann for that. 

Breaking point. How apt.

There was a blue glow from it when I messed that up, let something fall, tried to push...It was a mess. There was a blue glow, and, well. I felt a tingling in my hand, then the skin started to burn, and I knew that it would become far far worse, I knew that I’d die agonizingly within a month . Honestly, after Rose...My Rose...after she left me, found Greg...

What else was there, Peridot?

I did the deed swiftly, and I never saw my body. I instead saw a mass of writhing limbs attached to a gangrenous core, one that was the ground, I floated like...like a ghost, I saw a planet made of flesh and mutilated, mutated limbs, some more claw-like and gangrenous than others. 

Then, I remembered you, and asked whatever the planet was to, well, really I asked nobody in particular, but it was the only being that happened to be there, and I thought it was a nightmare, so I asked to wake up. I thought I was in a coma.

I did, and, well, now here I am. Tethered to the planet of limbs and to an endless expanse of fluffy clouds and endless midday that I have no desire to explore. Peridot. Don’t do this. Don’t betray us and give more countries this power. We can reinvent ourselves. We don’t need to be deathbringers. 

Peridot, we’ve had enough woe, destruction, ruin, and decay.

 


	11. Strong in a New Way, Chapter Four: Sugar

**PERIDOT:**

 

It’s official. If you didn’t already think I’d gone mad, future Peridot, this seals the deal. Let me lay out the timeline here, in case you somehow fail to remember this. Which would be ridiculous. Anyways.

Pearl hanged herself. I know you still know this. I found out yesterday. Not a great call to receive, believe me. It was an accident during one of her experiments with the unused plutonium core. I think it was the one they were going to use if Japan didn’t surrender. On whichever city that was going to be- it doesn’t matter. I don’t even know the details, but she messed up an experiment or something and now my friend is dead. 

Honestly, it was a shock more than anything. She was the brilliant physicist, seriously, she was so smart. I don’t know how she did it all. All of that for what? Screwing up and deciding to hang herself because all that radiation was going to be even worse? It’s not fair to her. She was supposed to, I don’t know, go on and discover something big. Win a Nobel Prize, I don’t know. She had the potential, I think. She deserved better than a dumb slip-up ending her life. 

I wasn’t able to sleep much last night, and what I did get was… not fun. Dreams tend to get weird when you’re stressed. You know about my day visions, so night time doesn’t seem all that out there. But jeez, this one was vivid. It was like I wasn’t even asleep, and that’s why I’m telling you I’m mad- I don’t even know if I was asleep. She came to me in my bedroom. I don’t even remember drifting off. 

I’d like to think that Pearl would choose me out of all people to appear to after death, the fidgety engineer, but it’s impossible to expect something like that. She even went ahead and warned me to change my ways- Christmas Carol style. Gave the full speech, it was all so  _ her. _ Even some pretentious Shakespeare reference. She seemed so… regretful. I don’t think I’m creative enough to make this up. But it can’t be real. She’s dead! 

I need more time to figure this out. Expect more about this soon- I don’t think that this is over.

 

**LAPIS:**

 

I’ve never felt more satisfaction out of seeing someone break down in front of me than when the engineer told me that she thought she saw a ghost. I didn’t show it then, though, merely watched and nodded as she rambled on about her friend that you so kindly used as an excuse to try and torment me further, Jasper. It seems maybe I’m not as screwed up as I thought I was, or at the very least, I get to spend my time in America with someone as screwed up as I am.

I may have dealt with a lot of shit in my time, but I still feel bad for her. Losing a friend is horrible, plain and simple. I’m not that desensitized yet, although I know you’d love to gloat over the death of another capitalist. As for Peridot, capitalist or not, she seems like a good person, and if we didn’t have to be lovers, I think we could be good friends. Even if I have to tune out the “Camp Pining Hearts” speeches.

 

**JASPER:**

 

You really are pathetic, Lionidze. Betraying us to one enemy wasn’t enough for you, was it? Now, here you are, sympathizing with a fucking American. An enemy of the people. Yes, she might be working with Soviets, but it’s a foolish mistake to actually believe a word these bastards say. They’re almost as unfaithful to their ideals as you are!  

Your “sympathy” is just another sign of your weakness, Lapis. You’re not just a doll- you’re a marionette. Everyone around you just pulls a few strings and there you are- dancing for them like the puppet you are. I don’t know if you betrayed us because of your disloyalty to the cause or plain weakness- the fact that I have to weigh both of them is a disgrace. 

Go have fun on your [mockingly] “little date,” you capitalist-sympathizing suka.

 

**PERIDOT:**

Aah, where do I start? It was fantastic! Everything- her, the dinner, the walk- well, mostly her, but doing this all  _ with _ her made it fantastic. She even seemed to lighten up a bit, like she was enjoying herself! Hold on, Peridot. Back up. Slow down. I know this is good cause for rambling- control yourself. Chances are, I might not remember the subject of this rambling in the future. So let’s try and start from the beginning. 

I’m not sure why she decided to take us out on a date. I mean, yeah- we do have to get married, she probably wanted to get used to it. When I asked, though, all she said was  “I thought it might be nice.”  That’s good enough for me, future Peridot! We decided on dinner, something local, not too expensive. We kept it casual, but even in a simple blue dress, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her.

One thing I’ve learned is that she isn’t very talkative. Or maybe just compared to me. I was happy to command most of the conversation, she listened with a few comments or questions. She was interested in some American culture things, but she even asked a little about me! Yes, I probably am a little head over heels, future me. You better not be laughing- it’s a really nice feeling. 

We went on a walk after dinner, in the evening. On the outskirts of El Paso, there weren’t many people, and we could discuss the plans that lay ahead of us more comfortably. Apparently, we get our marriage papers and everything early next week, and after that we set out for Los Alamos for a short honeymoon before getting to work.  

So I think you can understand why I would be excited about this. We’re going to be a couple soon, and even if it’s for a different purpose, I want to believe we can make something out of it. At the very least, tonight got my mind off of things. Hopefully I can keep that streak running.

 

**LAPIS** :

 

Yes, I took her on a date. Berate me as much as you want, but it had its advantages. It helped her stop thinking about the Pearl thing for the time being, and I got to learn more about how a “regular American” acts through immersion. Plus, if we really are going to be getting married, we have to learn how to act the part. A nice dinner out was a good way to get started down that road. 

Now that I’ve explained myself from the cold, logical standpoint, (if this was a video, she would be smirking here) which seems like it would be the only thing that could breach your thick Bolshevik skull, I have to say that I enjoyed myself. Not just because of the dinner, either. It was interesting to learn more about the person who’s going to be my wife next week, and she really isn’t that bad at all. The long-winded way of speaking took a while to get used to, but it’s kind of endearing. Overall, it all could be much, much worse. I’m satisfied with this, and as long as we stay careful I’m feeling more optimistic about the whole plan. She picked up on it quickly, and seemed satisfied with it. 

The one thing that will take some time to adjust to is the weird American sugar obsession. Peridot insisted I order a “Coke,” if I was really going to be a believable American. I can’t believe they actually drink this shit, Jasper. It’s like liquified sugar, and almost everyone in the restaurant was just okay with it. The engineer seemed amused enough. If we make it out of this alive, I’m making her drink vodka.

 


	12. Strong in a New Way, Chapter 5: Cheshire Cat

**Peridot:**

 

Today, I learned about what Lapis' did before she was, well, a spy. Kind of. I don't buy most of it, but you know what? It's at least a story, and I think that's what matters in the end, I'm going to be entirely honest, here. Or, well, I hope that’s what matters, because I’m kind of annoyed. She told me this.  "My name is what I said. Lapis Lazuli. I'm twenty-nine, I was born in Georgia. The state, of course. Savannah. There, It was much greener than out here, much more mountainous, and the Black Sea was- I mean, er, the…Atlantic Ocean, right, right, the Atlantic Ocean, it was beautiful. Endless water. Not like this dry wasteland. Everything's flat." 

We talked like this there in the car on the drive to Los Alamos, back to, you know, my job, which is just fun, I guess. Happy that I'm going to get to finally have something like that back in my life. "Oh, Peridot, the greatest mistake you've ever made, time to go back to the place where you made it!" Ugh. Anyway, I mentioned that I was probably just used to flat deserts, since I grew up in El Paso, but at least we had the Rio Grande.  

Honestly, since she did that whole thing where she waxed poetic about the "Atlantic Ocean", I feel like I should do the same for the Rio Grande, but it really wasn't that special. It's just a river. Anyway, continuing with what she told me... "When I was fifteen, I started learning to fly. I came from a rich family. Dad owned a clothing factory." "Dad". Huh. Maybe she's better at noticing little America details than I thought a Ruskie might be.

"Even though the Depression hit us hard, like it hit everyone, we still made do, and well, I was lucky. Loving parents. We...I learned how to fly. I got lessons. Oh, Peridot, I can't express enough what it's like to be able to fly. It's just...It's...My plane was a [hesitantly] Tiger Moth." I noticed her stop there. 

Like, she sort of said "Tiger Moth" in such a way that she...She didn't say it right. I had to wonder how true that was. Sure, I know this is all crap, but there's a spectrum of crap. Some things can be more crap than other things. "The Tiger Moth was...Sure, it was fragile, it kept breaking, and it made the weirdest sound with the propellor." Then she stopped, and caught herself. "You know, like most biplanes. That noise." 

I sighed a bit and listened, until eventually I just kind of spoke up. I was pretty done. I said, "Lapis. If you're going to feed me this crap, at least put in some effort." She nodded and pulled over to the motel where we had to stay for the night. It was a small place, the archetypical cheap motel. Zero cars in sight besides our old Hudson 6, which looked more like a...I dunno...goblin shark than a car.  

I paid for a room, and the place smelled like smoke and piss. The smoke I get, but the piss was what got me uncomfortable. The cockroaches underneath the bed...I don't want to talk about that whole fiasco. Suffice to say that we ended up with six cockroach corpses around the bed and the both of us tired and flopping on the bed like goddamn rag dolls.

The slip-ups were still bugging me, though. I gather all the courage that exists in my...frankly sort of shamefully tiny body, and I bring it up. Then, I said, "Are you half-assing lying to me for the mission, or what? If they picked you for this, you can't be this bad of a liar. I don't know why, but I'm oddly hurt."

 

**Lapis:**

 

You know, I had a pretty consistent story I was given. I had files of my fake family I had to memorize, a  life story on paper that I had to somehow pretend was my own, an accent to master as best as I could, pets I supposedly used to have...None of it said anything about flying, or the state of Georgia. In fact, my driver's license says that I'm from Arizona. On the other hand, I don't think that Peridot's going to see my driver's license anytime soon, and it's just a joke. A joke that could get me killed. I’m...new to this.

I probably shouldn't have added any of my real life into this. I shouldn't've mentioned growing up on the Black Sea, or flying, or, especially the weird noise that a Polikarpov Po-2's propeller makes. Oh. Yes. Zhasbera. I'm sure you figured that out. The drive was awkward, and having to keep a consistent story didn't really help matters in any way, especially when I was juggling the "true" story, the true story, and the hybrid that I'd created like an idiot.

So, let me just fucking say, Zhasbera, before you go after me for doing yet another evil thing to fuck over someone who's depending on me, and, by the way, if you're going to go after me for doing what I had to to survive, again, well, I'm done with that shit. Anyway, let me just fucking say that I felt bad. I keep feeling bad. 

This innocent womanchild of a scientist who I somehow need to use, you know, because that's the role I've been thrust into, using people, it's almost like when you died someone needed to pick up the slack, this innocent goddamn womanchild...She's got that look. The look that you saw on everyone back in the war.

She's wounded, betrayed, miserable, afraid for her life, and annoyed all at once. Her body's limp, and whenever I touch her she flinches. I tried to tell her "Peridot, you know I can't tell you the real truth, and  it's for the best if you don't sift through the cover story." She didn't listen. She's...idealistic, like that. Idealistic? No, that's a terrible word for it. She's naive.  

I just hope that I can get through this without her getting us both killed. Or, well, her arrested and me killed. It's nice to know things are fair and good in this world.

 

**Pearl:**

 

Good evening, Peridot. I think it's 2:20 AM? According to the clock. I understand what you're feeling, right now. I'm sure you feel very afraid and more than a little bit wounded, and I'm sure that all of that emotion's burning at you. Can I just ask you something, Peridot? Why did you decide to do this to begin with? You're throwing your life away for...for a cause that doesn't even make sense. Please. Stop. Think. Get out of your head for just a moment and try to be rational, here!

I know what it's like to want to undo the past. Not only did I do...as much, if not more than what you've done, but I also had Rose. Remember Rose? Dr. DeMayo? She was...beautiful, confident, intelligent, all-loving, seemingly able to always make the right choice, and I did everything I could for her. I worked under her for only a few years, but she and I...we were close. 

I thought we were close enough, anyway. 

Now, I don't even have the chance to...But maybe that's the problem. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking in terms of keeping Greg from being able to be with the woman he loves. That's probably harmful. I'm...digressing, here. My point is, Peridot, that we've all made errors. Sometimes bigger errors than others. 

Maturity isn't in trying to burn up everything we've ever made to fix those errors. It's about just moving on. I should know, because if I wasn't dead and more reflective than my living self I'd be going to every possible length to get her back, just like you're doing now with your cause...and we'd both be wrong.

 

**Peridot:**

 

Your crush isn't the same thing as stopping World War III.

 

**Pearl:**

 

I’m sorry, then, Peridot. You need to give up.

 

**Peridot:**

 

The only way to do that would be to turn myself in. I’m a traitor now, Pearl. I can’t give up. I made this decision, I need it to turn out to be a good one...Either way, I’m stuck doing this. It’s just that if it’s a mistake, I’m going to go down with the ship.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should establish that, in the absence of proper SIANW content, Atomic and SIANW occupy a state of "loose canonicity" with each other, essentially, things like the prison conversations probably happened in both timelines, that kind of thing. So, in each timeline, there are things that couldn't've happened, but unless there's an obvious canonical era, there's a decent enough chance that similar events happened in both timelines, so, for example, you could use Peridot Marshall's prison conversations with Amy Feynman as an idea of what it might have been like for Olivia "Peridot" Cardoso talking to Dr. Amy Baumann.


	13. Strong in a New Way, Chapter 6: Icarus and the Sun

**JASPER:**

 

It’s remarkable how much this place reminds me of our time in the 588th. I felt it from the moment you and the American entered through the gates. Of course, being an American base makes things entirely different, and it isn’t exactly an aerodrome, but that feeling of recognizing something familiar still remains. Maybe you feel it too, if you haven’t entirely repressed those memories. The cramped living quarters, that militaristic air, army base or not, but also that persistent feeling of comradery, even if it’s for all the wrong reasons in this case. I can almost respect it. 

More than anything else, seeing you come to a place like this with that scientist, who seems to be taking your “marriage” all too seriously, it makes me remember when we had that. At least I thought we did. Imagine that: me, not yelling at you. Even enjoying your company. Hah! It seems so distant, now, but something tells me if it was entirely gone, I wouldn’t be here telling you this. 

I’m sure you’ve tried to forget those days, but I’m also sure that that probably hasn’t worked out for you. I remember chuckling about how you truly were a Night Witch: you had me under your spell entirely, up until you left me to die out there. Seeing the American watch you all lovingly when you aren’t looking is a harsh reminder of how you used me the same way you’re using her.

It’s a shame she can’t see me. I’d tell her to run.

 

**PERIDOT:**

 

I really think that Lapis is beginning to warm up to me! As I’m working at the lab now, that’s reduced the amount of time we get to spend together, but she’s definitely transitioning from mysterious beautiful Soviet spy to really interesting beautiful Soviet spy. I mean, she isn’t telling me everything, that’s obvious, and still pretty annoying- but the meaning behind it seems genuine, and that’s the important thing, I guess. At least that’s what I’m going to believe so I don’t snap at her again. Just yesterday, she had this look on her face- that doesn’t happen often with her, with the whole glassy eyed stare and all most of the time- but it was enough to make me ask what was on her mind. When I spoke it sort of looked like I had startled her, even though I was right there- like she had just woken up, or something. But you remember the stuff about her flying and all? I don’t think that’s made up, even if there’s no way in hell the details are all truth.

So, I repeated myself when she was actually hearing me, and instead of just brushing it off or something like I was expecting her to, she actually answered. She paused for a moment, probably considering how worth it it was, then asked something along the lines of “You remember when I was talking about the… the biplane?” So I guess she took the hint, and decided to keep things “technically” true. You’d think it shouldn’t be a big deal, but I guess it is when the NKVD is involved.  

Anyways, I nodded, and she continued. Her eyes light up in this certain way when she’s talking about something that she really enjoys, I guess, and it’s really nice to see since that’s rare for her. Planes are something she really enjoys, apparently. She talked about them for a while, at least for her standards, from the feeling she gets when she’s in the air to doing basic repairs, the whole deal. There was one way she put it that I just can’t get out of my head:  “Being up in the air, it makes you feel… like you can do anything.I could just keep flying higher and higher, without limits. It all comes back to you when the… well, it all comes back to you eventually, but you still get the feeling every time…I miss it.”

She almost said that the feelings come back when… well, when something happens, and I think I’m smart enough to have a guess at what. I didn’t push it. Honestly, I was just thrilled to see her open up more! It might be good for her, even. I just hope that whatever the real story is, she manages to figure things out for herself, if that’s even possible.

 

**Pearl:**

 

Hello again, Peridot. I may be interrupting your sleep on a usual schedule now, if you continue to refuse to hear what I have to say. I’ll try, either way. Look, Peridot. I’m getting the impression that you may think that I believe I have all the answers here- that is not the case. I have my convictions, but I don’t know everything, and I don’t want you to see me as some wise philosopher or something who knows all there is to know about this sort of thing because that’s simply false. I’m as human as you are! Not exactly living, but...

It goes further than that, as well. I had very similar thoughts to yours regarding this whole mess, although I imagine you were feeling them before I was. It didn’t really strike me at all that what we were doing could be wrong, until… well, until Trinity.

Trinity was… it’s difficult to describe how it felt. There was a mix of anxiety and excitement, of course, we were all stressed that the rain would cause a delay, or something else could cause a slip up, or anything. The calculations had been run over and over again, but there was still a real chance of failure, and even if we could estimate the radius of the fireball there was no way to calculate what it would really be like to experience a nuclear detonation. We all grew nearly silent in the few seconds before the test was initiated, and pretty much everyone was focused on a metal tower that looked like a needle, miles off into the desert. Protective eyewear, of course. 

Seeing our efforts pay off like that, that explosion so much brighter than even the sun itself, at first it was nothing but awe. I couldn’t believe we had actually accomplished it. Afterwards, especially after Hiroshima, I began to think about how I couldn’t believe we had actually done it in an entirely different attitude, which is one you and I shared. We had made our own sun, Peridot- it was beautiful, isn’t that strange to say? It was an atomic fireball, and I found it beautiful. But it really was. I had been proud of us- but hearing the news of thousands and thousands of people  _ killed _ by what we’d done, I couldn’t believe I had let myself work on a project like this. 

So, Peridot, my point in all of this very roundabout manner of speech is that as much as I’d like to claim that I have the correct answer here, I cannot do that. Additionally, I want to make as clear to you as possible that we cannot let it fall into the hands of another nation. I really want to believe that people are naturally good, like Rose did… but people are also naturally frightened. I’m scared, I imagine you are, and even while I’m here pushing you and pushing you to make what I think is the right choice, I just feel… scared. I don’t know if I can pinpoint what exactly that’s coming from. You saw me as some sort of genius, but I’m just afraid. 

 

**Peridot:**

 

Yeah, well, we all are! Do you think I enjoy imagining my prison cell every day?

 

**Lapis:**

 

Peridot…

 

**Peridot:**

 

But we do it anyway, because, you know what, some stupid clod has to, so Pearl, unless you're some sort of repository for my guilt, get a clue.

 

 

 

 


	14. Strong in a New Way, Chapter 7: The Cold Hand

**Lapis:**

 

Peridot was a bit unusual today, I have to say. She was on edge, completely silent the whole day, but I’d poke her, you know, to make sure that she was still responding to the outside world, and she jumped as if I’d stabbed her in the leg with Zhasbera’s officer’s knife. 

Her eyes were dead, glazed over. I could almost see myself in their reflection. No...I think I could. That was what scared me. Ever since this scientist...Nacre...Pearl Nacre’s most recent visit, Peridot has been in a sort of perpetual haze. She forgets to eat until I cook her food and yell at her to come and eat with me, and all she does otherwise is sit there at her desk, writing.

She has a written journal she keeps, perhaps because she’s aware that it’ll be easier to take with her should we have to go on the run and hope we can escape to...Russia. I’ll be going there no matter what, but the last thing I want to do is subject someone I’ve grown to care about to the new Russia.

She always writes in this journal, now. Her back is straight, and her gaze is almost always forward, but she still writes in it. It has some important things, like copies of information taken from Lt. General Groves’ files. 

It also contains thirty or forty (I didn’t bother to count, I’m just guessing) pages of rationalizations. Or justifications. Maybe both? I’m not sure. They both seem to mean the same thing, but that’s how it is in English, everything has one connotation or another. Whatever. She writes essays, extensive essays, in perfect penmanship.

Peridot normally does not have perfect penmanship. Her writing has always been messy and unkempt. I guess she’s just putting more focus into getting that perfect. Her motions are mechanical and often she doesn’t bother to dress, so I have a normal, talkative tiny scientist who, for every night for the last ten days, returns home, drops the act, and goes back to mechanically writing in Spanish in her journal, with the speed of a sewing machine. This little purple journal has become her entire world, and I think it would be considered a security risk, even if it were empty. As mentioned, it isn’t.

Eventually, on the eleventh day of seeing her pretend to be normal for the outside world and come back home to become...whatever she actually is after Pearl’s third visit, I have to curse the worthless...So, finally, I poked her, and she jumped out of her chair, and then she went back to her chair, and I yelled. “No! You’re not doing this, Peridot! What the hell happened?" 

She turned to me and whimpered, like this was the most obvious fact in the world.  “I need this journal, Lapis...”  I was on the verge of kicking her in the head, but I tried to collect myself. “Why do you ‘need’ the security risk?”

[Somewhat quickly and heavily stressed, as if she’s trying to teach while on the world’s biggest caffeine high] “It’s not a risk, you’ve got to understand me, it’s not a risk, it’s got important things! It’s got copies of notes in Spanish, in case we need to burn the originals, it’s got all of my essays, and I need those essays, I really need to keep writing those essays, they’re about this and everything and arguments as to why Pearl isn’t real in this one, and in this one Pearl is real but I shouldn’t listen to her, and a bunch of them are about why I should keep doing this, if I don’t have these, Pearl keeps saying I should sleep and that the notes’ll be here in the morning but Pearl’s a liar...” 

I told her that Pearl was right on this and that she needed to at least try to sleep, and she couldn’t. She was dealing with insomnia, apparently, and that lasted for about three days before she finally gave in and slept. I called in and noted that Dr. Cardoso had to take a sick day, and when she woke up, she seemed better. Still jittery, probably even more so, still kind of obsessed with the journal, but not mechanical about it. She was human again, and dear god, _ I _ embraced  _ her _ for once and it seemed like there was a chance we weren’t all going to...end up the way we’d been thinking about it.

 

**Peridot:**

 

[Still kind of on the “caffeine high”] Logdate: January 1st, 1948. Well, it’s the New Year. So that’s something! Anyway, Log-Diary-Thing, I should probably get into the details here. I’m sure that Lapis has said a lot to her ghost or possible manifestation of her self-loathing about this, but I should probably give my whole perspective. 

Pearl’s last visit came with it some unfortunate effects, which, of course, I can and shall logically blame on Pearl herself. So, here’s what happened, essentially. Pearl appears, goes off on some thing about how she’s afraid and not sure what to do, and all that, and trying to tell me the same cruddy message about giving up! 

You know what, I can’t give up, that’s basically what I told her, I can’t give up, I’m in this ‘till the end whether I like it or not, so there! Ha! Wait, no, that’s not actually a good thing, but whatever. Anyway, what was I talking about? Right, right, right, right, the Pearl thing, so [Deep breath, then she gets really fucking “caffeine-high-ish", quick and kind of intense] Pearl appears at the foot of my bed, for the third time, and I see white patterns of butterflies flapping their wings and they envelop me and stick to my face and my arms in my bed and smother me until I see through my own eyes in our house...I see me handing over files and paperwork and notes from the journal to Lapis, who puts them in her bag, and I know where they’re going, they’re going to the other side, and I can’t see the notes but I know in this dream, and now, yes, I’m sure the whole thing was a dream, but I know that there are descriptions of a process for purifying plutonium, and information about Strategic Air Command and what the hell do we know about Strategic Air Command, that’s not Lt. General Groves’ thing that’s LeMay and who the hell knows where that’s centered, I don’t know... 

And then it ended. 

The butterflies came and enveloped me, smothered me, and I took a deep breath and tried to push them away but they kept coming and sticking my arms to my chest like an Egyptian mummy....and then I woke up. I thought. I was sure I woke up, but in retrospect, that’s a ridiculous thing to think, considering what it looked like. 

 I stood on a field of glass with a mirrored sky that, predictably, also looked like an endless field of glass, and there I met some dead people. 

At this point, it seems to be sort of a habit of mine, I know, right? How queer. Anyway, the first one I met was Pearl, and she had this dummy with big pink hair, like a sewing dummy, and she was dancing a waltz with it, and I don’t know if this was a real Pearl or not but at the time I thought I woke up. So, she danced the waltz, and kept speaking, ranting, not yelling but ranting. By the end, it sounded like she was going to tear up. She had a sickly blue glow around her the whole time.

“Oh, Rose, Rose, Rose, how could this have happened, you’re here with me, but you’re not, and I know you’re not, and I guess it’s over now, isn’t it, but I swear that whatever we had...You killed it. Why him, Rose? Why Greg? What did he have that I didn’t? I’d die for you, Rose! I would have died for you. What could he give you? We got so far, Rose, and you never noticed, even when we shared our drinks in private, together, alone, and... We got so far, Rose...We could have...It should’ve been different.”

Then the butterflies came and cut her in half in their massive swarm, and in the place of Pearl and the Rose dummy was Lapis, dressed in a trench coat, without eyes, just water from the Black Sea pouring out of her eyeholes. Not like tears. Like blood. She had half of her head blown out, too, anyway, chunks of flesh and viscera just floating there in the air, and she spoke, as if she were fine. 

“Peridot, I should probably confide something in you. I’m starting to care about you, and that’s not a good thing. I usually get by by being numb to everything. It’s how I’ve survived. So...I think I’ve decided to make myself numb to you, too. Sorry. It was only a matter of time.”

There was a pause then, and I felt as though she’d just kicked me in the chest, and I stopped, gasping for breath at the animated effigy of the woman who’s the only person I have anymore. She nodded, smiled, brushed a finger against my cheek while the Black Sea water flooded down her face and the viscera hung in the air, and kissed me on the lips. It took five seconds and it was an insult the whole time. I begged her to stay, but she just snapped her fingers. “You’re a terrible partner, Peridot.” Then, she vanished, turning into the butterflies. 

I wasn’t sure if she meant that I was a terrible partner in her spy work, or a terrible wife, but either way...Then Amethyst appeared, and she was alive. No, she was an avenging angel, wings the length of semi-trucks, bursting out of her back, the squat little scientist beating her wings in the air for a moment like a dragon.

White wings, perfect feathers. White wings, perfect feathers. White wings, perfect feathers. Black sea. It should’ve been- Stop. I keep trying to remember, but I’m...remembering improperly, focusing on the wrong things. She landed in front of me, dressed in a collared shirt with a stain over the left side that frankly seemed completely counter to the burning eyes and massive wings, and she poked me in the chest, her finger against my simple green nightgown, so I spoke, I told her that I had blood on my hands, and whatever she was here to punish me for, that I had no choice, now. 

“Blood on your hands?”  Amethyst rolled her eyes and held out a hand, and the butterflies made for her a handkerchief, which she slapped into my hand.  “Blood on your hands? You know why those of us who didn’t ruin our lives stabbing America in the back did it, right? Hitler was going to make one, if he didn’t, someone else would, and look at the world, Peridot. We were just scientists, and eventually someone would make the bomb for someone. If anyone has “blood on his hands”, it’s Truman, not you, not me. War’s over, and you’re trying to start another one. I trusted you, Peridot. I liked you. A lot. I wanted to chat with you, but you were never there, especially when your fucking commie girlfriend got into the picture. Hell...Before you lost it, after P got obsessed with Rose...I thought maybe I could...find someone else. I know you apparently completely forgot about me, Peridot, but I sure as hell didn’t forget about you. Honestly, maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should have said something before you met the commie, but I was afraid P would make a fuss, and hey, that’s just how it all goes, then. Right now, though? I’m wondering what I saw in you. You’re a lunatic and a traitor in love with someone who’d kill you if it kept her alive. I hope they execute you, if I don’t get it right first.”

I balled up the handkerchief, threw it back at her, and said some things I’d rather not repeat for this little audio log, then...then she had the butterflies swarm to her hand, turn into a long saber, and she raised it, about to bring it down on my head. 

Then I woke up in my bed, and I started to think a bit too quickly, hoping to find some solution or justification for this, to prove any of this wrong, to prove that Lapis loved me, that I’m doing the right thing, to prove that I’m not going to die for nothing.

I hate my imaginary friends.

 

 


	15. Strong in a New Way, Chapter 8: Warmest Touch

**Lapis:**

 

It worked. It’s a simple statement. It worked. Apparently that’s what Dr. Oppenheimer said about this bomb when it first dropped. No crap about the “Destroyer of Worlds” or what have you. Just...”It worked”. A simple expression, a relieved exclamation, whatever.  

Well...Shit. Here goes. Zhasbera, I know you’re going to make fun of me for this, and honestly, I don’t care. I’m glad you listen to me, Lapis. Like you always have. Shut it. We were sitting there, at home, and I started to rant at you. Like a lunatic. We’re all mad here. Anyway, I started to rant, but I couldn’t even get past the first two sentences. Thinking, It was something like this, if I’m remembering this: 

“How the hell am I expected to do any of this when I know that if I actually do make it back to Russia I’ll end up shot for being a counterrevolutionary, or a wrecker, or just because someone wants to take whatever I can actually own, so I get denounced, and then there I am in a labor camp or worse? Why the hell should I care?”

Then I stopped, and saw her walk towards me. Peridot. Or, well, she bounced towards me, kind of. Floated? It was weird. Her every movement was filled with purpose and this sense that she knew exactly what she was doing. 

I had no idea what she was doing, but she seemed like she did. Honestly, it was kind of strange. For all of her talk about me being a mysterious Soviet spy woman or however she phrased it, I have never understood the way that Peridot’s mind works.

Some days she’s Queen of the World, other days she’s miserable. Some days she’s utterly obsessed with doing minor, often useless things, like she’s a defective machine trying to do the same thing over and over...and some days she’s willing to take a near-stranger on a walk around the outskirts of her home city dressed in a somewhat immodest blue dress. I’m almost certain that she isn’t aware of the fact that it is immodest.

She just...At first I thought that Dr. Cardoso was insane. Now, I’m certain she’s insane. If she thinks I’m mysterious, it’s because of how much time I spend trying to be seen as mysterious. She’s mysterious because Olivia Arriola Cardoso makes no god damn sense. She’s just a very inconsistent person. 

That’s the thing, though. I’m sitting here three days ago, watching Peridot move around the house in sharp, short motions. She keeps trying to do...things...that I can’t really see, since she’s mostly behind me, but sometimes she passes by me. 

I wait, and I have to wait silently for a good half hour before she seems even willing to pause in whatever strange task she’s set herself to, and I speak as authoritatively as I can. “Sit.”  I jerk my head at the couch. It’s an old couch, a soft, pale pink couch, and she’s kind of bouncing a knee a bit, so I try to ignore that. 

I turn to her, take a deep breath, and steady myself to talk to her. “I’ve been with you pretending to be your wife for over a year now. You’ve shown me that you have...how do you say it...a lot of kinks to work out. You’re a queer person, and I can live with that. I actually care about you, Peridot. A lot.” Peridot still bounces her leg, but looks at me now, instead of at the wall. Would I die for her? I’m not sure. 

I continue. “You’re funny, cute, clearly trying to be a good person, which is more than I can say for me...Let’s be honest, Peridot. You’re the best thing that’s ever come to my life, though that might be due to the low bar. So, if this is what we’re going to do until...Well, anyway, I love you. I actually love you.” At that point, I suspected something was going to go horribly wrong, especially if she returned the favor, as anyone with a brain could see she would.

 

**Peridot:**

 

Holy crap! She actually said it! Sure, it was in this weird, sort of language, like she was almost ashamed of it, but I’m going to be honest here, I sort of expected that. She’s...not egotistical, but it’s like, she has an ego that she needs for others to make sure they don’t think she’s...weak, maybe? Pathetic? In need of a bullet to the brain?

I think that last one’s it. Honestly, though, it still...It was like this frozen hand that had been choking me ever since our first date had finally let up, and I’d gotten a chance to breathe freely, and oh my God, did I breathe.

I spoke, of course, as quickly as I could without sounding totally incomprehensible. “Well, yeah, obviously, I mean, I can kind of see why. I’m a brilliant scientist and cute. Apparently.” I said, entirely exaggerating my ego. My ego is interesting. It’s kind of constantly in flux. It wants to fill the room and be everywhere, like, I finally want to just be recognized as someone who...deserves to be recognized.

Oh. Damn it. That’s probably why I helped to kill...whatever tens of thousands it ended up being in Nagasaki. Sure, my “help” was negligible, but still. I can’t fucking forget it. I should have sabotaged it, but no. I had to be the leader. Even when I wasn’t the leader.

I know it’s hard to imagine me as being arrogant or egotistical, but I assure you that I was once a very cocky woman. I feared the world, so I guess I tried to put up a shell. Then...life showed me how fragile the shell was. 

Anyway, another trait of mine is my tendency to get side-tracked with useless information that’s all pretty inconsequential. Anyway, my point is that some of those old tendencies came back. Oh, how hilarious it would be if it was the other way around. If I started as a depressed Peridot in collusion with a totalitarian regime and ended up as arrogant and socially awkward but free to make my own choices. 

I’m sure I’d be happier.

But, since that wasn’t how it went, I’ll get away from what-ifs. Lapis laughed at my little bout of arrogance, and I put a hand on my hip and asked why she found it so funny. She stopped, I suspect she was trying to think of a lie, but she said something I dearly hope is true. 

“You’re a resilient person, Peridot. Even after all of this. You can break, and break, and break, and break, and break, over and over again...but you’ll never shatter for good. That’s rare.”  I stopped at that, and she brushed a finger down my cheek, taking my head lightly in her hands and planting a long kiss there. Let’s make it clear. We’ve kissed a lot, but each time it was always in public, and I never knew whether it was love or acting.

This, though? It was private, and, more importantly (maybe just to me), it was right after she told me she loved me. Sure...She could still be lying, and maybe I’ll never know for certain, but damn it, I’m going to take this.


	16. Strong in a New Way: What Could Have Been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 were never actually written up, and since the whole project is done I see no reason to write up scripts that are never going to be used. So, here's what would have been in Chapter 9 and Chapter 10. Also, next chapter, note that that's a largely truncated version of what was intended to be, since, again, whole thing fell through. We're just lucky I worked on part of the ending early.

Chapter Nine: Essentially, Chapter Nine was going to be similar to what we saw in Atomic, namely, Amethyst discovers the two's plotting and they freak the fuck out.

 

Chapter Ten: Final, super-passionate fuck that's the payoff for all of the buildup, and between Ten and Eleven Lapis is brought back home to Russia for execution, and Peridot's been tried and convicted of espionage, and sent to prison.

 

This is literally all I had.


	17. Strong in a New Way, Chapter 11: To Die Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is much shorter than intended, for obvious reasons, but I at least tried to give some kind of ending.

**Jasper:**

 

It’s been a long trip, hasn’t it, Lionidze? Here we are. The concrete is cold, isn’t it? Open your eyes. You’re closing your eyes. Why are you closing your eyes? This is your time to die, Lionidze. Lapis. Lapis! Open your fucking eyes! 

It’s still going to hurt, you know. When the bullet pierces through the back of your head and drills through your skull, then the brain, then the skull again, then the skin...ouroboros. Fucking...I never knew that shit. Ouroboros. It started with you letting someone you cared about die and killing me, now it’s ending with you letting someone you cared about die and killing you. Mirrored fucking Ouroboros.

Well, I know what it means now. Snake eating its own tail, eternal cycle. Remember when this started? Well, with your girlfriend. By the way, I don’t talk like this. These metaphors...They’re not me. They’re more for a wannabe noblewoman than a fucking soldier...Lapis. 

I think I feel myself in your killer's body, like a ghost of the myths. I think I have his hand, my hand, on the trigger. I think I see you, eyes closed, arms and legs cuffed, you still dressed in that polka-dot-fucking-American-dress you were captured in. I think I see that.

Do I? I’m speaking like you imagine a ghost to...even if I never would. Metaphors. Bullshit about Mother Russia - Your mother! - and the Devil...So, before you die, I want you to know that you were talking to a shadow this whole time. 

No, you were talking to a goddamn memory. A memory too stubborn to die because you couldn’t forget me. I’m a split personality, or a manifestation of whatever guilt you - Wait, no. That’s ridiculous. What is true is that this memory is going to get to kill her creator.

The moment of truth. Open up your goddamn eyes before I blow out your brains. By the way, I know your eyes are closed. I’m not really behind you, I didn’t possess anyone, I’m not a ghost. I was a soldier. Now, I’m as much a part of you as your fear is.

I feel it. You play dead, internally, this whole goddamn time, you try to seem like the “Mysterious Soviet Woman” to the Americans, the “True Soviet Airwoman” to us, then you were the hardened Hitlerite...You’re whatever you need to be, but as soon as you finally find someone, anyone you can care about... 

Well. Here we are.

The final proof that I died like a hero and you died like a traitorous Western whore. Thank you for imagining me pulling the trigger. When we both go, I want you to know this. You were the only devil I ever saw.

 

**Lapis:**

 

[she takes a deep, long breath.] Comrades, I hope there’s a heaven and a hell. Then, you’ll burn with the Devil and I’ll be in Heaven with Peridot.  You believe you’re a good person?  I believe God will understand.

 

**Peridot:**

 

What started with guilt ends with, well...Huntsville State Penitentiary, I’m due to get a visit from Dr. Baumann...She’ll probably have a lot to say. I see the ghosts of Lapis and Pearl hanging around me in the air, and they’re chattering, and talking, voices in my head...I’m not crazy. 

Maybe I am crazy.

At least I’m not alone. I don’t think I’ll forget that Soviet spy. I mean, what else am I going to think about, trapped in here? Worst case, I have imaginary friends. [Darkly comic laugh]

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly based on Romans-art's Soviet Spies AU, but with a flashback time period, a flashforward time period and a slightly different setting. Also, Pearl's Oppenheimer and Amethyst is Feynman, kind of, in the Atomic timeline, because this was written for fun, so...
> 
> Finally, it owes its existence to the excellent "The Altar of the Green Rock" a SU fanfic on this site that explores the Lapidot shipping in more detail. "Atomic" and "Strong in a New Way" were intended to be a larger scale affair. That went as well as you'd expect.


End file.
